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A COMPANION TO 
PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


FOR ENGLISH READERS 


Being a Commentary 


adapted to Davies and Vaughan’s Translation 


By BERNARD BOSANQUET 


M.A. (OXON.), LL.D. (GLASGOW) 
FORMERLY FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 


‘ And whom do you mean by the real Philosophers ?’ 
‘ Those,’ he answered, ‘who love to look upon truth.’ 
REPUBLIC, 475 E 


NEW YORK 
MACMILLAN AND CO. 


1895 





PREPACE 


THE idea of writing.a ‘Companion to Plato’s Republic 
for English Readers’ was suggested to me by the 
appearance of Mr. Walter Leaf’s Companion to the 
lliad, combined with my own experience of the intense 
desire for a closer knowledge of Plato, felt by many 
students who could read him in a translation only. Philo- 
sophy loses sorely by translation, but less than poetry ; 
and perhaps a commentator can do more to restore its 
real meaning. And, indeed, as not all scholars have been 
trained in philosophy, ‘I may perhaps hope, to quote © 
Mr. Leaf, ‘that even those who have a knowledge of 
the language may find something to help them’ in 
my work, Whether I have succeeded well or ill, I 
have at least spared no pains to ascertain and express 
the real import of Plato’s ideas; and this I take to be 
the true duty of a commentator, especially in dealing 
with a philosophical genius of the first rank. I ought 
‘to say that I have made no attempt at textual criticism. 

I do not flatter myself that I have propounded any- 
thing new ; on the contrary, my task has presented itself 
to me rather as an endeavour to bring home to English 
readers or to novices in Greek the sort of interpretation 
which a tutor at Oxford or Cambridge would probably 


viii COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


lay before his pupils. The analysis by section-headings, 
which may seem too formal a treatment of a writer so 
informal as Plato, was forced upon me by experience 
in myself and others of the difficulty with which the 
definite content of his thought is perceived under the 
fluent transitions of his style. Any student will see 
how much I owe to the late Mr. R. L. Nettleship’s 
essay in Hellenica on the ‘Theory of Education in the 
Republic.” I have also gathered many hints from his 
unpublished notes shown to me through the kindness 
of Prof. A. C. Bradley ; but I could not now discrimi- 
nate what came to me from that. source. The late 
_ Master of Balliol was almost the founder of a genuine 
_ philosophical study of Plato in England, even for 
scholars ; while, for readers of English only, his life- 
work first made a complete knowledge of the Dialogues 
possible. But here again it would be impossible to 
distinguish my particular obligations, which extend 
through the whole of my philosophical education. Mr. 
Stewart’s edition of the Ethzcs of Aristotle has furnished 
me with valuable ideas and illustrations; I have borrowed, 
he may think, too much, but I am not sure that I ought 
not to have borrowed more. Hegel’s History of Philo- 
sophy 1 have also found invaluable. 

The translation to which the Companion is adapted is 
that of Davies and Vaughan, now a volume of Messrs 
Macmillan’s Golden Treasury Series. I have selected 
it because, being scholarlike and trustworthy, it is of a 
size and cost which make it universally accessible. It 
is natural that I should freely criticise the translation, 


PREFACE ix 


considering how philosophical views have changed since 
it was made; but yet my rendering is often not meant 
as a substitute for the translators’ version, but rather as 
a supplement to it. The translation is referred to by 
page and line, the page number being printed in heavy 
type. It has forty-three lines to a full page, and though 
in it the lines are not numbered, I hope that the reader 
will be able with a little practice to pick out readily 
the passages to which my notes refer. The marginal 
pages, each divided into five approximately equal parts, 
indicated in the commentary as in the Greek editions by 
the letters A, B, C, D, E, in order, will often help the 
reader to identify a passage; thus a place marked 
400 A-will be within ten lines or so below the mar- 
ginal number 400, 400 E within a similar interval above 
401, 400 C about half way between the two numbers, 
and so on. 

I have finally to express my sincerest thanks to Miss 
Porter, a student at the University Hall centre, for her 
labour under difficult conditions in making an Index 
both to the translation and the commentary. This is 
but one out of very numerous instances of an eager and 
persevering spirit among London students, which have 
convinced me that a work such as the present, if properly 
executed, cannot fail to meet a need. 


BERNARD BOSANQUET. 


= 


arte 


ets ae 
Repke LIS 
ap 
e 
a ees 
ie 





CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 


The Age of Plato, 

The Relative Date of the Repudlic, 
The Outcome of Previous Philosophy, 
Some Hints on Reading Plato, 


Notes on the Greek Household, with reference to Plato’s 
readiness to destroy the Family, 


Notes on the Unity of the State, and Plato’s view of 
Property, 


Some Illustrations of the Popular Greek Ideal of Happiness, 


Hints on the Structure of the Repudlic, 


NATURAL DIVISIONS OF THE REPUBLIC 


1. Prologue, showing the Rise of the Moral Problem out 
of everyday life, and out of the current theories of 
the time, 


2. First Answer to the Moral Problem, by specifying the 
system implied in the existence of the moral being 
—‘my station and its duties’—as external type, 
and also as content, of the true morality or inward 
will, . ‘ 


PAGE 


37 


79 


xii COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


3. Second Answer to the Moral problem, Ideal Morality, 
or philosophic religion, and its real or meta- 
physical basis, 


4. Negative verification of the connection between well- 
doing and well-being, by concomitant variations of 
ill-doing and ill-being, 


5. Psychological corroboration of the criticism passed 
upon unreal appearance, pointing out the connec- 
tion between the unreal in cognition and in feeling, 


j 


INDEX, 


PAGE 


198 


311 


377 
417 


INTRODUCTION 


I—THE AGE OF PLATO. 


PLaTo was born about 427 B.c., and lived till about 347. 
Pericles had passed away in 429, and Plato’s youth nearly 
coincided with the wearing struggle of the Peloponnesian war, 
which ended after a quarter of a century with the military, 
political, and commercial downfall of Athens. In 404 the 
city surrendered to Lysander, and an unscrupulous oligarchy, 
‘the thirty,’ was established with Spartan aid. In 399 
Socrates fell a victim partly to the perplexed passions of 
the democracy, mistaking friends for foes, and partly to his 
own defiance of restraint in matters which concerned his 
conscience. The epoch was in every way significant. The 
democracy, no longer imperial, had lost the field for its 


energies, and the harvest of its gains. The individual citizen - 


could no longer draw a salary for judging the causes of an 
empire, nor profit by the crowds that thronged to the com- 
mercial capital of Greece, nor gain at once a sailor’s pay 
and training in vigilance and maritime skill by maintaining 
the naval police of the Eastern Mediterranean. Pauperism ap- 
peared within the citizen ranks; self-indulgence grew ; energy 
declined ; Macedon arose in the distance, and the day of the 
sovereign city-commonwealth was over. 

In a small society causes operate rapidly and the aspects ° 
of life exhibit closely correlated variations. The change 
which affected commerce and politics showed itself at the 

A 


2 INTRODUCTION 


same moment in the field of literature, art, and philosophy. 
The frogs of Aristophanes, produced in the year preceding 
the fall of Athens, both reveals a consciousness .and affords 
an example of the transition. The great tragic poets are de- 
parted, such is its burden, and earth has none like them. And 
in the mere substitution of literary satire for wild humour and 
audacious invective we feel the lowering pulse ofAthenian life. 

In sculpture—for of Greek pictorial art we have little beyond 
tradition—the change is no less marked. Phidias died before 
Pericles, and the age now dawning was the age of Praxiteles 
and Scopas, the age in which style was moving from the 
Caryatid of the Erechtheum or the procession of the Parthenon 
towards the Aphrodite of Melos or the Apollo Belvedere. 
If we will, we may give the title of decadence to this transition, 
and indeed to the whole modernising movement we are 
indicating. But the word only applies to it in that liberal 
sense in which speculation marks a decadence compared with 
action, or saintliness contpared with citizenship. The time 
had come for a change; and the spirit that fused the fourth- 
century marble into a new tenderness and a new audacity 
was continuous with the spirit that dwelt in Leonardo and 
Michael Angelo. 

In prose-writing there were two factors that now attained a 
wholly new development. One of them was rhetoric, both in 
its literary and in its political or forensic shapes—lIsocrates 
lived from 436 B.c. to 338, and Demosthenes from 384 to 
322,—and the other was systematic philosophy as known to 
us in the works of Plato and Aristotle. Neither of these, of 
course, was a new creation of the fourth century, but their 
previous history had been colonial, or at most artificially 
Athenian, as the writers and thinkers of Western and Eastern 
Hellas had been drawn to the imperial city. Now for the first 
time they became central achievements of the Greek intellect 
and leading phenomena of the age. 

This movement, of which Plato was himself so great a part, 
involved in many ways a reaction against the fifth century, 


THE AGE OF PLATO 3 


and a criticism upon it. Our breath is taken away when 
Plato, however dramatically, puts into Socrates’ mouth such 
words as these: ‘For this is what I hear, that Pericles made 
the Athenians lazy, cowardly, greedy babblers, by teaching 
them to take pay for citizen duties’ (Gorgias, 515 E) ; oragain: 
‘For they (the statesmen of the great fifth century) filled the 
city full with harbours and dockyards, and walls and revenues 
and such like absurdities, but cared no whit for temperance 
and for righteousness’ (#6. 519 4). 

But in spite of, or because of, this attitude of criticism, it 
is the quintessence of Hellenic and even of Athenian life 
that Plato distils for us. The philosopher must be outside 

his subject, and also at its heart. This double relation we 
must bear in mind as the essential condition of philosophy. 
And this is why speculation belongs to the beginning of what 
may be called a decadence. 

‘It is only when the actual world has reached its full 
fruition that the ideal rises to confront the reality, and builds 
up, in the shape of an intellectual realm, that same world 
grasped in its substantial being. When philosophy paints 
its grey in grey, some one shape of life has meantime grown 
old: and grey in grey, though it brings it into knowledge, 
cannot make it young again. The owl of Minerva does not 
start upon its flight until the evening twilight begins to fall.’ 4 


Books TO READ.—Grote and Curtius are not really superseded. 
Holm’s Griechische Geschichte is short, and excellent for those who. read 
German. E. Abbott’s History of Greece, and Pericles, are safe guides. 
Mr. Grant’s Greece in the Age of Pericles is a convenient book. 


II—THE RELATIVE DATE OF THE REPUBLIC. 


No one would be likely to contend that the Repud/ic is other 
than a work of Plato’s prime. Starting from this supposition, 
we have nothing to learn from the extant historical evidence, 


1 Hegel, Phil. d, Rechts, p. 20, quoted from Wallace, Prolegomena, 
p: 29. 


4 INTRODUCTION 


which does not compel the assumption of any absolute date 
later than an event which brought the Theban Ismenias into 
prominence about 395 B.c. Indeed, of all unmistakable 
allusions in Plato’s dialogues, there is one only of serious 
chronological interest, and that is the reference in Symposium 
193 A, which proves that this brilliant and fantastic dialogue 
was not yet completed in 384 B.c., when Sparta broke up the 
Mantineans’ city into villages. If Plato in his forty-second 
year or later composed the Sympostum—a work to our mind 
sparkling with youth—he may well have written the Republic 
many years after,! and did not, in all probability, write it 
before. 

The distinction between external and internal evidence is 
not altogether sound, for each of them rests on an inference 
in which some aspect of a certain work is compared with 
something otherwise known. And the impossibility of 
separating the two is illustrated by every attempt to arrange 
Plato’s dialogues in order of time, so far as it takes account of 
nearness to the style and thought of Socrates, or of allusions 
to his trial and death. 

The natural assumption that writings which treat of these 
incidents belong to a time not far removed from their 
occurrence is contradicted by other considerations in two 
instances. The philosophical conceptions of the Phaedo 
and the Jeno are so elaborate, marking indeed the climax 
of Plato’s mysticism, and differ so strikingly in this respect 
from the simple language of the C7rto or the Apology, that it 
seems natural to separate them by a considerable interval 
from the time of Socrates’ death, and to class them with the 
Symposium, Phaedrus, and Gorgias as belonging, at the earliest, 
to an early prime, when Plato had outlined his great con- 


1] do not lay stress on the suggestion of a reference to Leuctra (371 
B.c.) in Republic 423A, where see note, although the coincidence with 
Aristotle’s allusion is certainly remarkable. It should be noted that if 
we admit the very conceivable hypothesis of insertions subsequent to first 
writing, all inference from these allusions is annihilated. 


DATE OF THE REPUBLIC 5 


ceptions, but had not, some would add, applied to them the 
organic criticism which we assign to his later maturity. It 
is hardly an accident that the four great myths which deal 
with the fate and nature of the soul are found in the Phaedrus, 
Phaedo, Gorgias, and Republic; of the bearing of this fact 
on the Republic we will speak below. The mythical language 
of the Zimaeus stands on a different footing from these four 
myths ; in it, no doubt, the terms are symbolic, but the ideas 
are not those of current mythology, nor modelled upon them. 
The mythical form of the Zimaeus is no condescension to 
popular imagination, but a straining of the intelligence be- 
yond the limits of existing philosophical categories. 

Turning from allusions to the death of Socrates to writings 
which show kinship with his simple and tentative manner, we 
feel little doubt that such dialogues as the Lysis, Laches, 
and Charmides are among the earliest works of Plato. The 
reader who will compare for himself any one of these 
beautiful little conversations with the mystical eloquence of 
the Phaedo or Phaedrus, the constructive thought of the 
Republic, the analytic insight of the Sophist or Philebus, and 
the majestic exposition of the Z%maeus or the Laws, will see 
the grounds on which this inference rests more clearly than 
any detailed criticism can exhibit them. The grace and 
flexibility of the presentation, the lifelikeness of the con- 
versational drama, the absence of advanced metaphysic and 
of a positive conclusion,! the prominence of Socrates’ per- 
sonality, all suggest that the memory of Socrates, in some 
degree as we know him from Xenophon, was still fresh in 
the writer’s mind, and that Plato’s peculiar non-Socratic con- 
ceptions, and more especially his enthusiasm for physical 
science, were not yet developed. 

It is clear that from considerations like these we shall 
arrive at no absolute date for the Republic, and in fact the 
discussion of the order in which Plato’s dialogues may be 

1 Cp. notes on Republic, Book I. 336A and 354c, and Book Iv. 
444 A. ; 


6 INTRODUCTION 


supposed to have originated is valuable for its arguments 
rather than for its conclusions. So far we have noted the 
differences between writings which it is natural to take as 
mature, and those which it is natural to connect with the 
early years of the fourth century. The further problem, where, 
among the more mature writings, the Republic may be sup- 
posed to fall, is likely to be treated in accordance with the 
critic’s view of the so-called ‘doctrine of Ideas.’ If this is 
conceived as the culmination of Plato’s thought, the Phaedo, 
Phaedrus, and Republic will be thrown towards the end of 
his life ; if it is taken to be a half-poetical anticipation of his 
matured criticism of knowledge, the dialogues which present 
it in the most distinctive form are likely to be assigned to 
as early a period as other considerations will allow. Between 
these mere probabilities I frankly incline to the latter, and 
will add a few observations tending to confirm it. 

The Zaws is later than the Republic; this scrap of 
‘external evidence’ we have from Aristotle, but it tells us 
less than we are disposed to affirm without it. The difference 
of manner between the Zaws and the ‘earlier’ writings is so 
great, and that in the direction away from youthful character- 
istics, that its genuineness has been doubted. We may almost 
assume that it is among the latest of Plato’s works. The 
Timaeus and Critias presuppose the Republic, and so are 
later than it; and. in the same way the Sophist and Statesman 
show themselves later than the Zheaetetus, itself a treatise of 
extraordinary philosophical power. Starting then with the 
Timaeus, Critias, and Laws, as admittedly later than the 
Republic, we are forced to observe certain peculiarities of 
diction, tending to an ornate rhetoric, which those three 
dialogues share with each other, not to speak of the absence 
of the person of Socrates, and a lack of the true conversa- 
tional grace and of the beautiful descriptive setting which 
mark what we have agreed to call the ‘earlier’ dialogues. 
Now these peculiarities extend, when allowance is made for 
abstractness of subject in the Philebus, to this dialogue 


DATE OF THE REPUBLIC 7 


along with the Sophist and Statesman, and of these three, 
moreover, the Phz/ebus alone gives the wonted importance 
to Socrates. These three, again, from the standpoint of 
' modern philosophy, are among the most mature and profound 
of all the dialogues of Plato. I therefore assent to the 
conclusion which has been reached by Professor Campbell,? 
to whose initiative a great part of these investigations are due, 
that the Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, Timaeus, Critias, and 
Laws—nearly in this order—are to be placed as the latest 
dialogues in a separate group. 

If this result is admitted, the position of the Repudlic is 
essentially determined by priority to this important set. It is 
thus thrown back into Plato’s first maturity, as a work 
connected with the Gorgias, Phaedo, and Phaedrus, by its 
myth dealing with the eternity of the soul, and with both 
these and the more ‘Socratic’ dialogues by its grace and 
humour and dramatic power, though separated from the latter 
by its constructive argument and positive conclusion. On 
the other hand, however, its philosophy looks forward to 
the latest group, and has been thought to presuppose the 
Philebus, which really, perhaps, it anticipates. Moreover, 
the linguistic peculiarities of this group begin in some degree 
to show themselves in the Republic. Therefore, if really a 
work of that first maturity which produced the Symposium 
when Plato was over forty-two, it is yet a work which anti- 
cipates the later development sufficiently to unite in one, 
more than any other dialogue, the strands of Plato’s thought. 
The love-philosophy is here from the Symposium and the 
Phaedrus, and also the psychology of the latter, the account 

1 See Transactions of Oxford Philological Society, 1888-9, on position of 
Sophist, Statesman, and Philebus in the order of the Platonic dialogues, by 
Professor L. Campbell, who mentions certain statistics of Platonic formulz 
collected by German scholars, as confirmatory of his conclusions. The 
affected rhetoric of the Phaedrus, in which Plato satirises the tendency 
which subsequently mastered him (as a man imitates a local accent in 


jest, and then adopts it in earnest) is a striking negative instance corrobo- 
rating Professor Campbell’s view. 


8 INTRODUCTION 


of courage and temperance developed from the Zaches and 
the Charmides, the problem of perception from the Zheaetetus, 
a criticism of knowledge and of pleasure, with an account of 
the good, which point forward to the Philebus, the analysis of ° 
science and philosophy as the union of the one and the 
many in experience, which was to be more elaborately 
worked out in the Sophist, the first step towards the immense 
symbolic plan of the Zimaeus which sees in the visible world 
and its order a revelation of divine law, and the whole 
brought to a focus in its bearing on man’s social nature as 
symbolised by the scheme of a commonwealth which was 
repeated with modifications in the Zaws. I do not say that 
this view of the central position of the Republic is demon- 
strated or demonstrable; but it appears to me to be the best 
working hypothesis, and to conflict with no established facts. 


BOOKS TO READ.—Zeller’s Plato and Older Academy ; Jowett’s Jntro- 
ductions, especially Ox Jdeas of Plato, in Introduction to Meno. The 
best way is to read the dialogues, as suggested in the text. 


III.—THE OUTCOME OF PREVIOUS PHILOSOPHY. 


It is most important to realise that, while we think of Plato 
as the founder of speculative philosophy, this was by no 
means the light in which he appeared to himself. Nothing 
is clearer than that he felt himself to be navigating a stormy 
sea of opinion, and intervening in a discussion which had 
endured for centuries, and by which every term of scientific 
import had acquired a polarity perceptible to him but nearly 
lost to us. The few pregnant words in which Aristotle sum- 
marises Plato’s philosophical antecedents, at the close of his 
own brief history of philosophy, may here be produced. 

‘After the philosophies which have been described there 
succeeded Plato’s treatment, which for the most part followed 
them (apparently the Pythagoreans and Eleatics, who have 
been last spoken of), but also possessed peculiar features 


PREVIOUS PHILOSOPHY 9 


over and above the Italian philosophy. For Plato had been 
from his youth up familiar with Kratylus and so with Hera- 
kleitan opinions, to the effect that all which is “sensed” is 
in perpetual flux and there can be no science about it, and 
this conception he retained. Socrates, however, though deal- 
ing with moral ideas and not at all with the nature of the 
world, yet in those subjects did search after the universal and 
pay attention to obtaining definitions; and Plato, adopting 
his method, yet assumed, owing to the influence above- 
mentioned, that the definition must be of somewhat else, and 
not of what is “sensed.” For he held it impossible that a 
general determination should apply to any of what are sensed, 
seeing that these are in perpetual change. Therefore he gave 
the name of “forms” (¢deaz) to being of this kind (ze. to what 
could be defined), and held that what was sensed had its 
name from this being, and as alongside it; for the manifold 
of what have the same name with the forms (as light objects 
with lightness, etc.) are what they are (he said) by parti- 
cipation in the forms.’! 

Then follows a passage devoted to distinguishing Plato’s 
view of the relation between particulars and universal from 
that of the Pythagoreans.? 

It would not, perhaps, be so fanciful as it might seem, to 
assert that the analysis of predication—the explanation, that 
is, how it is possible to say with truth not merely ‘A horse 
is a horse (A is A)’ but ‘A horse is an animal’ (A is B)— 
which we owe to the theory of Plato working on the 
practice of Socrates, is the spiritual quintessence and brief 
abstract of the history of Greece. The identity and diversity 
which it exhibits as inseparable elements in all rational 

1 Arist. Metaphysic A 6. Note that the term ‘ metaphysi¢’ is said to have 
arisen merely from the fact that Aristotle’s treatises on general principles 
of nature and science were placed in his works after the physical investi- 
gations, and were named from this position ‘the (writings) after the 
physical (writings)’—‘ ta meta ta phustka.’ Neither logic nor ae, wale 


in our sense of the words, are terms employed by Aristotle. 
? On this interesting point see Burnet, note p. 307. 


10 INTRODUCTION 


experience had previously caught the eye of different schools 
of philosophy, flourishing in opposite extremities of colonial 
Greece, in which, owing to obvious historical causes, Hellenic 
culture originated. We may take as typical the two splendid 
figures of Herakleitus of Ephesus in Ionia, and Parmenides 
of Elea in Italy, the former of whom flourished about 500 B.c. 
and the latter was so far of a subsequent generation that he 
distinctly refers to Herakleitus, and in all probability met 
Socrates at Athens. 

The Ionic mind had an Asiatic tinge. It was fascinated 
in philosophy as in poetry, and indeed in history, by the 
perishableness of things. ‘Everything gives way, nothing 
abides.’ In Herakleitus this conception, which had forced 
Ionic philosophers to search for a unifying element below the 
metamorphoses of objects, found classical expression in the 
doctrine—not logical nor psychological, but probably physical, 
or naively metaphysical—of the flux of things. Kratylus, the 
pedantic successor of Herakleitus, capped his great master’s 
saying that you could not bathe in the same river twice, by 
the addition ‘No, nor once.’ By Plato this doctrine was 
read in a more ‘subjective’ or logical sense, and connected 
with the principle of Protagoras, ‘Man is the measure of all- 
things.’ 

To Parmenides of Elea it seemed essential above all to 
preserve identity or unity, though his conception also dealt 
not with spiritual being, but with a corporeal theory of the 
world. The oneness or homogeneity of the material universe 
excludes motion, such is his general contention, and makes 
the metamorphoses of appéarance unintelligible, and in this 
conclusion we are bound to rest, and accordingly to reject 
appearances, involving motion and change, as unreal because 
incapable of rational construction. 

That crushing in of the colonial extremities of Greece upon 
the central regions, which was due to their precarious 
situation in contact with powerful native states—the same 
influence to which they owed the priority of their development 


PREVIOUS PHILOSOPHY 1l 


—was reflected in the intellectual world. After the beginning 
of the fifth century Ionia has no independent existence, but 
must be protected by Athens if it is not to be oppressed by 
Persia. In a lesser degree, and from more various causes, 
the prosperity of Italian and Sicilian Greece was interfered 
with at the same epoch, while the new power and prestige of 
Athens made it in intellect as it was in politics the centre of 
Hellas. At Athens, therefore, in the fifth century, the ends 
of the world came together, and through Socrates and Plato the 
conception of intellectual unity in diversity, of the one and 
the many as inherent in discourse and in experience, and as 
reconcilable only by the methods of knowledge and critical 
philosophy, was elaborated under very various influences. 
Among these must especially be mentioned the analysis of dis- 
course attendant on the new rhetorical movement, which set in 
the strongest light the problems attaching to language and to 
the judgment, and the Pythagorean attention to number and 
harmonic ratio, which stimulated, though it may not have 
been adequate to guide, Plato’s analysis of enumeration, and 
his conviction that law or proportion ruled the universe. It 
is also obvious that just as the critical problem of the relation 
between reality and intelligence was raised by the deadlock 
between unity and plurality in naive philosophising, so the 
situation of the ethical, political, and esthetic world, of which 
Socrates had emphasised the leading factors by his life and by 
his death, was in the fourth century forcing upon the speculative 
intelligence new provinces of inquiry, which combined with 
the logical problem in suggesting a deeper conception of what 
most really zs, in the sense of Socrates’ phrase ‘the matters 
which are most important.’! 

Some special ideas from Herakleitus and other earlier 
philosophers seem to re-echo throughout Plato’s writings. I 


1 Xenophon, Memorad. iv. 5. 11; the Pythagoreans are very likely 
responsible for impressing upon Greek thought the characteristic and 
fateful conception that philosophy is a way of life. See Burnet on 
Pythagoreans. 


12 INTRODUCTION 


cite a few of the fragments! because of their intrinsic merit, 
and to make partial amends for the necessary meagreness of 
the foregoing reference to a great philosophical evolution. 


a. The free dynamical view of ‘nature.’ 


Anaximander? of Miletus in Ionia, middle of sixth century : 

‘Living creatures arose from the moist element as it was 
evaporated by the sun. Man was like another animal, 
namely a fish, in the beginning.’ 

‘Further, he says that in the beginning man was born from 
animals of a different species. His reason is, that, while 
other animals quickly found food for themselves, man alone 
requires a prolonged period of suckling. Had he been origin- 
ally such as he is now, he could never have survived.’ 


b. Zhe illusions of anthropomorphism and poetry. 

Xenophanes* of Colophon in Ionia, (survived the Ionic 
revolt at beginning of 5th century) : 

‘There is one god, the greatest among gods and men, 
neither in form nor in thought like unto mortals’ (this very 
possibly was simply the world). . . . ‘And he abideth ever 
in the same place, moving not at all, nor doth it befit him 
to go about, now hither, now thither.’ Cp. Plato’s Canons 
of Theology, Republic, Book 11. 379 A. 

‘But mortals think the gods are born as they are, and have 
perception like theirs, and voice and form.’ 

‘Yes, and if oxen or lions had hands, and could paint with 
their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses 
would paint the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen like 
oxen. Each would represent them with bodies according to 
the form of each.’ 

‘Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all things 
that are a shame and disgrace among men, thefts and adul- 
teries and deceptions of one another.’ 


1 T take them as they stand from Burnet. 2 Burnet, p. 73. 
3 Burnet, p. 115. 


PREVIOUS PHILOSOPHY 13 


c. The underlying order in the flux of things. 


Herakleitus! of Ephesus in Ionia, about 500 B.c. : 

‘Wisdom is common to all things. Those who speak with 
intelligence must hold fast to the common as a city holds fast 
to its law, and even more strongly. For all human laws are 
fed by one thing: the divine.’ 

‘The people must fight for its law as for its walls.’ 

‘Wisdom is one thing. It is to know the thought by which 
all things are steered through all things.’ 

‘ Man’s character is his fate.’ 


i 


d. The dream-world. 


Herakleitus : 

‘It is not meet to act and speak like men asleep.’ 

‘The waking have one and the same would, but the sleep- 
ing turn aside each into a world of its own.’ Cp. Republic, 
476 Cc, and note. 


e. Poetry and superstition. 

Herakleitus : 

‘For what thought or wisdom have they? They follow the 
poets and take the crowd as their teacher, knowing not that 
there are many bad and few good.’ 

‘The most esteemed of those in estimation knows how to 
feign ; yet of a truth justice shall overtake the artificers of lies 
and the false witnesses.’ (‘The reference is doubtless to 
Homer or Hesiod.’—Burnet’s note.) 

‘Homer should be turned out of the lists and whipped, 
and Archilochus likewise.’ 

‘ Night-walkers, magicians, priests ot Bacchus and priest- 
esses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers.’ 

‘The mysteries into which men are initiated are unholy.’ 

‘ And they pray to these images, as if one were to talk with 
a man’s house, knowing not what gods or heroes are.’ 


1 Burnet, p. 132 ff. 


14 INTRODUCTION 


‘ They purify themselves by defiling themselves with blood, 
just as if one who had stepped in mud were to go and wash 
his feet in mud.’ 

Books TO READ.—Burnet’s Zarly Greek Philosophy (containing the 


fragments translated); Zeller; Pater’s Plato and Platonism; Exrdmann’s 
History of Philosophy ; Grote’s cc. 67 and 68, on Sophists and Socrates. 


IV.—SOME HINTS ON READING PLATO. 


I bring together here a few extracts from Hegel’s History of 
Philosophy, which are worth considering by students of Plato. 


a. On the beauties of Plato. Gesch. d. Phil. ii. 200. 


‘ Here is a characteristic which sends many away dissatisfied 
from the study of Plato. When we begin a dialogue, we find 
in Plato’s free manner, beautiful scenes of nature, a splendid 
introduction, which promises to initiate us by flowery paths 
into philosophy, and that the highest, the Platonic philosophy. 
We come upon elevating things, such as particularly attract 
the young; but that is soon over. We have been captivated 
by the animating scenery, but now we have to do without it ; 
we come to what is strictly dialectic and speculative, and we 
pursue a laborious road, pricked by the briars and thistles of 
metaphysic. For look! here come researches about “ one” 
and “many,” “being” and “nothing,” as the highest of all ; 
we did not bargain for that, and we creep away, amazed that 
Plato looks to such matters for knowledge. Then, from his 
deepest dialectical researches Plato goes back again to picture- 
ideas and images, to portraying scenes of the intercourse of 
clever men; so it is, ¢g., in the Phaedo, which Mendelssohn 
has modernised and turned into Wolffian metaphysic ; begin- 
ning and end are elevating, beautiful, but the middle engages 
itself in dialectic. Thus very diverse moods are needed to 
get through Plato’s dialogues; and in studying them we 
require an indifference of the mind to the variety of the 
interest. If we read with an interest for the truly speculative, 


ON READING PLATO 15 


we skip what is held most beautiful; if our interest is in 
the elevating and edifying, and all that, we pass over the 
speculative part, and find it does not correspond to our 
interest. We are like the young man in the Bible who has 
done this and that, and asked of Christ what he should do 
to follow him. But when our Lord commanded him, “ Sell 
all that thou hast, and give to the poor,” he went away 
grieved: he had not bargained for that. Just so, many mean 
well by philosophy, have studied Fries, and God knows whom. 
Their breast is full of the true, good, and beautiful; they 
want to know and see it, and understand what we ought to 
do; but it is mere goodwill that their heart is big with’ (ze. 
goodwill as opposed to actual resolute persistence). 


b. Dangers of the mythical or pictorial mode of representing 
ideas which Plato adopts. Gesch. d. Ph. ii. 165. 


‘In order to apprehend Plato’s philosophy in his dialogues, 
it is our business to distinguish what belongs to the picture- 
idea—particularly where he takes refuge in a myth to repre- 
sent a philosophical conception—from the philosophical idea 
or notion itself; it is only so that we can be sure of the sort 
of thing which belongs to the picture-idea as such, and not to 
thought, and that it is not the essential point. Now if we do - 
not know in itself what zs the notion, or the truly speculative, 
we inevitably run the risk of being induced by these myths to 
draw a whole number of propositions and theorems out of the 
dialogues, and enunciate them as doctrines of Plato’s philo- 
sophy, when in themselves they are nothing of the kind, but 
simply belong to the fashion of the picture-idea. 

So, ¢.g. in the Zimaeus Plato avails himself of the figure 
that God made the world, and the daemons had certain func- 
tions in the work; all this is said just in the fashion of the 
picture-idea. Now if it is taken as a philosophical doctrine 
that God created the world, that higher beings of a spiritual 
nature exist, and helped God in the creation ; this is literally 
found in Plato, and yet it does not belong to his philosophy, 


16 INTRODUCTION 


When he says, pictorially, of the human soul, that it has a 
. rational and an irrational part, this again is only to be taken 
in the general sense; Plato is not saying as a philosophical 
truth that the soul is compounded of two sorts of things or 
substances. When he represents cognition, or acquisition of 
knowledge, as recollection, this may mean that the soul pre- 
existed before the birth of the human being. Just so when 
he speaks of the central point of his philosophy, of the 
idea, the universal, as the permanently substantial, as the 
pattern of sensuous things, we may easily be misled into 
thinking of those ideas, after the fashion of modern categories 
of the understanding, as substances which exist in the intel- 
ligence of God, or by themselves independently, e.g. as angels, 
beyond the real world. In short, everything that is expressed 
in the mode of the picture-idea the moderns take straight 
away for philosophy. One may frame a Platonic philosophy 
in this way, relying on Plato’s own words; but if we under- 
stand what philosophy is, we do not trouble ourselves about 
such expressions, but we know what Plato meant.’ 


c. Zhe meaning of the Ideas. Gesch. d. Ph. ii. 174. 


‘When Plato spoke of table-ness and cup-ness, Diogenes 
the Cynic answered, “I see a table and a cup, but not table- 
ness and cup-ness.” “Right,” rejoined Plato, “for eyes, 
wherewith table and cup are seen, you have ; but intelligence, 
wherewith table-ness and cup-ness are seen, you have not.” 
What Socrates began was completed by Plato, who recognises 
as the real only the universal, the idea, the good. By the 
| representation of his ideas Plato has revealed the intellectual 
world ; but it is one which is not beyond reality, in heaven, 
in some other place, but is the actual world.’ , 


d. Zhe supposed ‘ideality’ of Plato’s conceptions (especially 
the social conceptions). Gesch. d. Ph. ii. 242. 


‘If we thus regard the content of the Platonic idea (ze. 
looking below the surface of life to see whether its funda- 


THE GREEK HOUSEHOLD 17 


mental facts are grasped), we shall find that Plato did in fact 
represent the Greek moral system (.Si#¢/ichkei#) substantially ~ 
as what it was; for Greek civic life is what forms the sub- 
stantial basis of Plato’s Republic. Plato is not the man to 
worry himself with abstract theories and principles; his true 
intelligence has grasped and represented real truth, and this 
could be nothing else than the truth of the world in which 
he lived, of that one mind which came to life in him no 
less than in Greece. No one can jump out of his age; the 
mind of his age is his also ; but the point is, to understand 
it in its content.’ 

G. @. Ph. ii. 254: ‘People still set it down as his defect, 
that he was too ideal, but his defect lies much rather in 
this, that he was not ideal enough. For if reason is the 
universal power, and this is essentially intellectual; then as 
intellectual it involves subjective freedom, which had dawned 
on the world in Socrates as a new principle. Therefore, 
though rationality ought to be the basis of law, and is so on 
the whole, yet on the other side it essentially involves con- 
science, private conviction, in short, all forms of subjective 
freedom. ... 

‘This element in general, this movement of the individual, 
this principle of subjective freedom, is in Plato in part dis- 
regarded, in part purposely violated, because it displayed itself 
as that which brought about the ruin of Greece.’ 


V.—NOTES ON THE GREEK HOUSEHOLD, WITH 
REFERENCE TO ‘-PLATO’S READINESS TO 
DESTROY THE FAMILY. 


The classical source for our knowledge of the Athenian 
family about Plato’s time is the Oeconomicus of Xenophon,} 
in which an Athenian gentleman describes to Socrates the 
course which he has adopted to secure a healthy and rational 


1 Translated by Collingwood and Wedderburn, in Mr. Ruskin’s Bzb/o- 
theca Pastorum. 
B 


18 INTRODUCTION 


relation between himself and his wife, and good management 
for their household. I make a few extracts. 

(Socrates has asked him whether his wife was capable of 
managing a household when she came to him.) 

‘What should she know when she came to me? She was 
only fourteen, and had always lived under the strictest 
supervision, that she might see, and hear, and ask questions, 
as little as possible. All that I could expect was that she 
could return you a garment if you gave her the wool [making 
it or setting the slaves to make it], and had seen how work is 
given out to the servants; and she was perfectly trained in 
control of the appetite, which is a very great thing.’... 
‘When she had lost her shyness and become domesticated so 
that I could converse with her, I asked her what she thought 
was the purpose of our union,’ etc. (vil. 5 and 10). 

In this, plainly held up as an ideal union, the wife was to be 
house-mistress, and definitely to remain in charge ‘at home’ — 
while the man was ‘abroad.’ One more modern touch 
occurs in the lecture on her duties : 

‘One of your duties I am afraid you will think unpleasant, 
viz., that when any of the servants are ill, you will have to 
attend to them, and see that they are cared for.’ ‘Why 
surely,’ my wife replied, ‘that is a most delightful service, if, 
‘as one hopes, those who have been well cared for will be 
grateful, and have a more kindly feeling than before’ (vil. 
37), and a beautiful picture is drawn of the reverence which 
may attend the matron, in place of any decrease of respect as 
age comes upon her, if she makes herself a valued leader in 
the household. There is an almost chivalrous expression 
‘pleasantest of all, if you prove better than me, and make me 
(the husband) your servant’ (vi. 41-42). It appears from Ix. 
1o that she could keep and read an inventory ;! but it is 


_ 1 See Newman, p. 171 note; Mr. Grant, Greece in the Age of Pericles, 
p- 184, takes an apparently different view ; but the practical difference is 
not great. Mr. Grant’s quotations on the general feeling about women 
‘are well worth studying, especially the splendid passage from Euripides’ 


THE GREEK HOUSEHOLD 19 


thought that the education of Athenian women did not 
include more reading and writing than this. This, as I said, 
is an ideal union ; the ordinary union at Athens involved the 
same ignorance and seclusion of the wife, often without the 
safeguard presented by active household occupation. 

‘IT advised her not to sit still all day like a slave, but to 
move about and supervise the establishment, and get exercise 
in doing so.’ The ‘sitting still,’ with nothing to do but to 
dress (X. 2, 10, 12), was evidently an evil which Xenophon 
had in his eye. 

This was the Greek household at its best; even so the 
matron had no interests outside the house, nor did ladies, 
either married or unmarried, dine out, or go to parties at 
which men were present, or, consequently, take part in general 
and cultivated conversation. Such cases as that of Aspasia 
were exceptional. At an ordinary dinner-party the beauties 
are the young men. In the whole of Plato’s dialogues, 
no woman is represented as taking part in the conversa- 
tion. What Pericles says in the funeral oration is well 
known. ‘And if I must say a word, to those who now 
are widows, on the excellence of women, I can sum it up 
briefly : for it is great glory for you! not to fall below the part 
which nature assigns you, and to be spoken of among men as 
little as possible whether for good or for evil.’? 

‘The husband could divorce his wife at a moment’s notice 
by simply turning her out of the house.’® The only check upon 
him was the obligation in that case to pay back her dower. 
A dowerless wife had therefore a very precarious position. 

And where women were uncontrolled, matters were not 
Medea, containing the striking thought, ‘ They say of us (women) that we 
live a secure life at home, while the men do battle with the spear ; Fools !- 
I had rather stand thrice in the line of battle than be a mother once,’ 
1. 248. 

1 This shows that the women would be present at the public funeral 
ceremony. As a rule they were not present at the theatre, but were 


admitted to certain performances. : 
2 Thucyd. ii. 45. ® Newman, dc. 


20 (. INTRODUCTION 


better, but worse. Aristotle’s account of the total break-down 
of Spartan institutions in this aspect is a most remarkable 
indictment of the system which left the household as a centre 
of extravagance, while subjecting the pud/ic life of the men to 
the severest discipline aimed at a rigorous simplicity. This, 
it may be observed, is precisely what Plato would have been 
proposing, if, in the Republic, he had not urged the abolition 
of the family. 

‘In all cities in which the life of the women is ill ordered 
you may say that half the community is outside the law. So it 
is in Sparta; the legislator wished the whole city to be hardy, 
and carried it out with the men, but omitted the women. (Aris- 
totle says below that Lycurgus tried it and failed!) For they 
live profligately in every way, and luxuriously... . During 
the Spartan empire much power was in the hands of the 
women. .,. The audacity (to which they are trained) is 
useless in daily life, and yet in war, when it should be useful, 
the conduct of the Spartan women was most detrimental to 
the state.’ 

Where the peculiar conditions of Sparta did not exist, 
other safety-valves were found. Plato in the Zaws (g09 E, a 
most remarkable passage, to which Mr. Newman’s treatment 
of the subject drew my attention) would actually prohibit all 
private worship and altars and temples, because of the 
tendency of women and invalids to make and pay fanciful vows 
to gods and inferior spirits (saints !), ‘filling all the houses and 
villages with altars and temples,’ whereas, Plato says, to found a 
temple or divine service is a serious thing, and requires a great 
mind. So Menander’s Misogynist (fourth century) complains : 
‘The gods are especially a nuisance to us married men, for 
we have always to be keeping some festival.’ ‘We had 
family prayers five times a day; seven maid-servants stood in 
a circle playing cymbals ; while our ladies chanted’ (frr. 4 and 
5, Newman, /¢.), and finally (first century. a.D.) Plutarch’s 
picture, ‘It is false to say that idle people are cheerful ; if so, 

1 Aristotle, Pol. 1269 B, 22 ff. 


THE STATE AND PROPERTY 21 


women would be more cheerful than men, as they mostly stay 
at home; but as it is, though “the north wind may not touch 
the tender maid,” as Hesiod says, yet vexation and distraction 
and ill-feeling, owing to jealousy and superstition and am- 
bition and innumerable empty fancies, find their way into 
the boudoir.’ (De Trang. Animi, i. 2, Newman, /.c.) 

It is not altogether surprising that Plato, not seeing his way 
to the combined freedom and dutifulness of the modern family 
at its best, which is still so very far from general realisation, 
should have suggested putting an end to the system. 


Books TO READ.—Newman’s Introduction to his edition of Aristotle’s 
Politics, 500 pp. ; Mahaffy’s Social Life in Greece; Grant, of. cit. 


VIL—NOTES ON THE UNITY OF THE STATE, 
AND PLATO’S VIEW OF PROPERTY. 


Aristotle criticises Plato, on the basis of a view of the 
state almost literally drawn from Plato himself, as, in the 
sense of Section Iv. above, ‘not ideal enough.’ Aristotle’s 
own notion of several property, however, was not quite ours. 
It did not include! apparently the right of bequest, or of 
unlimited accumulation. Solon, it is worth remarking, had 
laid restrictions on the acquisition of land at Athens with 
good results. 

1. Aristotle’s conception of the State, Politics, i. 1: 
‘Every state is a community of some kind, and every 
community is established with a view to some good; for 
mankind always act in order to obtain that which they think 
good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or 
political community, which is the highest of all, and which 
embraces all the rest, aims, and in a greater degree than any 
other, at the highest good.’ 

Politics, i. 2: ‘When several villages are united in a single 
community, perfect and large enough to be nearly or quite 
self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in 


1 Newman, p. 167. 


22 INTRODUCTION 


the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake 
of a good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms of society 
_ are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the 
(completed) nature is the end. For what each thing is when 
fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of 
a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end 
of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and 
the best.’ 

‘Hence it is evident that the State is a creation of nature, 
and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by 
nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either 
above humanity, or below it ; he is the 


‘ Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one,’ 


whom Homer denounces—the outcast who is a lover of war ; 
he may be compared to a bird which flies alone.’ 

‘Now the reason why man is more of a political animal 
than bees or any other gregarious animals is evident. Nature, 
as we often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only 
animal whom she has endowed with the gift of speech. And 
whereas mere sound is but an indication of pleasure or pain, 
and is therefore found in other animals (for their nature 
attains to the perception of pleasure and pain, and the intima- 
tion of them to one another, and no further), the power of 
speech is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient, 
and likewise the just and the unjust. And it is a character- 
istic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of 
just and unjust, and the association of living beings who have 
this sense makes a family and a state.’ 

‘Thus the State is by nature clearly prior to | the family and 
to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the 
part ; for example, if the whole body be destroyed, there will 
be no foot or hand, except in an equivocal sense, as we might 
speak of a stone hand; for when destroyed the hand will be 
no better than a stone hand. But things are defined by their 


1 We might say ‘implied in.’ 


THE STATE AND PROPERTY 23 


working and power; and we ought not to say that they are 
the same, when they no longer have the same properties, but 
only that they have the same name. The proof that the state is 
a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the indivi- 
dual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing ; and therefore he is like 
a part in relation to the whole. But he who is unable to live 
in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for him- 
self, must be either a beast or a god: he is no part of a state.’ 

2. Aristotle’s criticism of Plato, Pod. ii. 5: ‘When the hus- 
bandmen are not the owners, the case will be different and easier 
to deal with; but, when they till the ground themselves, the 
question of ownership will give a world of trouble. If they do 
not share equally in enjoyments and toils, those who labour 
much and get little will necessarily complain of those who 
labour little and receive or consume much. There is always 
a difficulty in men living together and having things in 
common, but especially in their having common property. 
The partnerships of fellow-travellers are an example to the 
point: for they generally fall out by the way and quarrel 
about any trifle which turns up. So with servants: we are 
most liable to take offence at those with whom we most 
frequently come into contact in daily life.’ 

‘These are only some of the disadvantages which attend the 
community of property ; the present arrangement, if improved 
as it might be by good customs and laws, would be far better, 
and would have the advantages of both systems. Property — 
should be in a certain sense common, but, as a general rule, ( 
private ; for, when every one has a distinct interest, men will \ 
not complain of one another, and they will make more pro- 
gress, because every one will be attending to his own business. 
And yet among the good, and in respect of use, ‘‘ Friends,” as 
the proverb says, “ will have all things common.”? Even now 
there are traces of such a principle, showing that it is not 
impracticable, but, in well-ordered states, exists already to a 
certain extent and may be carried further. For, although 

1 Cp. Rep. 349 D. 2 Cp. Rep. IV. 424 4. 


24 INTRODUCTION 


every man has his own property, some things he will place at 
the disposal of his friends, while of others he shares the use 
with them. The Lacedaemonians, for example, use one 
another’s slaves, and horses, and dogs, as if they were their 
own: and when they happen to be in the country, they 
appropriate in the fields whatever provisions they want. It is 
clearly better that property should be private, but the use of 
it common ; and the special business of the legislator is to 
create in men this benevolent disposition. Again, how 
immeasurably greater is the pleasure, when a man feels a 
thing to be his own; for the love of self is a feeling implanted 
by nature and not given in vain, although selfishness is 
rightly censured ; this, however, is not the mere love of self, 
but the love of self in excess, like the miser’s love of money ; 
for all, or almost all, men love money, and other such 
objects in a measure. And further, there is the greatest 
pleasure in doing a kindness or service to friends or guests or 
companions, which can only be rendered when a man has 
private property. ‘The advantage is lost by the excessive uni- 
fication of the state. Two virtues are annihilated in such a 
state: first, temperance towards women (for it is an honourable 
action to abstain from another’s wife for temperance’ sake) ; 
secondly, liberality in the matter of property. No one, when 
men have all things in common, will any longer set an 
example of liberality or do any liberal action ; for liberality 
consists in the use which is made of property. Such legisla- 
tion may have a specious appearance of benevolence; men 
readily listen to it, and are easily induced to believe that in 
some wonderful manner everybody will become everybody’s 
friend, especially when some one* is heard denouncing the 
evils now existing in states, suits about contracts, convictions 
for perjury, flatteries of rich men and the like, which are said 
to arise out of the possession of private property. These 
evils, however, are due to a very different cause—the wicked- 
ness of human nature. Indeed, we see that there is much 
more quarrelling among those who have all things in common, 


1 Rep. V. 464, 465. 


THE STATE AND PROPERTY 25 


though there are not many of them when compared with the 
vast numbers who have private property. 

‘ Again, we ought to reckon, not only the evils from which 
the citizens will be saved, but also the advantages which they 
will lose. The life which they are to lead appears to be quite 
impracticable. The error of Socrates! must be attributed to 
the false notion of unity from which he starts. Unity there 
should be, both of the family and of the state, but in some 
respects only. For there is a point at which a state may 
attain such a degree of unity as to be no longer a state, or at 
which, without actually ceasing to exist, it will become an 
inferior state, like harmony passing into unison, or rhythm 
which has been reduced to a single foot. The state, as I was 
saying, is a plurality,” which should be united and made into 
a community by education; and it is strange that the author 
of a system of education which he thinks will make the state 
virtuous, should expect to improve his citizens by regulations 
of this sort, and not by philosophy or by customs and laws, 
like those which prevail at Sparta and Crete respecting 
common meals, whereby the legislator has (to a certain 
degree) made property common. Let us remember that we 
should not disregard the experience of ages ; in the multitude 
of years these things, if they were good, would certainly not 
have been unknown; for almost everything has been found 
out, although sometimes they are not put together; in other 
cases-men do not use the knowledge which they have. Great 
light would be thrown on this subject if we could see such a 
form of government in the actual process of construction ; for 
the legislator could not form a state at all without distributing 
and dividing the citizens into associations for common meals, 
and into phratries and tribes.’ 

3. Another form of the same criticism may be added?: 
‘As, in property, my will is made real for me as a personal 
will—that is, as the will of an’ individual—property is 


1 ¢.e. the Platonic Socrates. 2:Op. tbc. $2. 
3 Hegel’s Philosophie d. Rechts, sect. 46. 


26 INTRODUCTION 


characteristically private property ; while common property, 
of such things as in their nature can be severally possessed, 
bears the character of a dissoluble combination, in which I 
can. choose or not choose to let my share remain.’ 

‘The use of the elements is incapable of being made a 
private possession.!. The agrarian laws at Rome contain a 
conflict between collectivism and private property in land; 
the latter necessarily gained the day, as the more reasonable 
factor in the social system, although at the expense of other 
rights. Family trust property contains a factor which is 
opposed to the right of personality, and therefore to that of 
private property. But the rules which deal with private pro- 
perty may be subordinated to higher spheres of right, to a 
corporation or to the state, as in the case when ownership is 
vested in a so-called moral person—property in mortmain. 
However, such exceptions must not be founded in caprice or 
private interest, but only in the rational organisation of the 
state.’ 

‘The idea of Plato’s Republic contains as a general principle 
the injustice against the person of making him incapable of 
holding private property. The idea of a pious or friendly or 
even compulsory fraternity of human beings with community 
of goods, and: the banishment of the principle of private 
property, may easily occur to a habit of thought which 
mistakes the nature of spiritual freedom and of right, and does 
not apprehend them in their definite factors. As for the 
moral or religious point of view, Epicurus deterred his friends 
from organising such a community of goods, when they 
thought of doing so, precisely on the ground that to do so 
would indicate mistrust, and that people who mistrust one 
another are not friends.’ 

‘Note. In property my will takes the shape of a person. 
Now a person is a ‘this’; therefore the property is the 
personification of ¢#zs will. As I give my will existence by 


1 The elements were ves communes according to Roman law. But of 
course there is property in a water supply. 


THE STATE AND PROPERTY 27 


means of property, property in its turn must have the attribute 
of being this in particular, ze. mine. This is the important 
doctrine of the necessity of private property. If exceptions 
are made by the state, it is it alone that can make them; and 
often, especially in our own days, it has restored private pro- 
perty. So, for example, many nations have rightly abolished 
the monasteries, because in the last resort a collective institu- 
tion has no such right to property as the person has.’ 

4. Plato, as shown by Republic 464 B, lays but slight stress 
on the abolition of several property for the guardian class, 
regarding it purely as a corollary of abolishing the family, and 
as a means to the highest unity of feeling in the state. If 
separate households were to be maintained, he would no 
longer care for common property. From his point of view, 
however, he was faithful to the notion. See Laws, 739 B-D 
(J). ‘The first and highest form of the state and the 
government and of the law is that in which there prevails 
most widely the ancient saying, that, “‘ Friends have all things 
in common.”! Whether there is anywhere now, or ever will 
be, this communion of women and children and of property, 
in which the private and individual is altogether banished 
from life, and things which are by nature private, such as eyes 
and ears and hands, have become common,? and in some way 
see and hear and act in common, and all men express praise 
and blame and feel joy and sorrow on the same occasions, 
and whatever laws there are unite the city to the utmost,— 
whether all this is possible or not, I say that no man, acting 
upon any other principle, will ever constitute a state which 
will be truer or better or more exalted in virtue.’ 

The best thing, perhaps, that we can learn from the dis- 
cussions of the Greek thinkers on these subjects, is their com- 
plete subordination of the means of life to the end. What in 


1 Aristotle, 2¢., points out that this can be fulfilled without a compul- 
sory communism, and, as he thinks, better fulfilled. 

2 The purpose and criterion even here is a spiritual unity ; the material 
means to it are means, and no more. 


28 INTRODUCTION 


particular is to be done, every age must beat out for itself. 
But the relation of life to its material is unchanging. 


VII—SOME ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE POPULAR 
GREEK IDEAL OF HAPPINESS. 


The ideas of philosophers are drawn from the life around 
them, and can neither be interpreted nor accounted for 
without some knowledge of that life. The history of Greece, 
if in one way summed up by the theory of predication, in 
another way has a singular bearing on the notion of happiness. 
Throughout the utterances of Plato and Aristotle on this 
matter there echoes the antithesis of Greek and Oriental, 
citizen and despot, civilisation and barbarism, to maintain 
which so hard a battle had been fought, and which was there- 
fore interwoven with the proudest memories of the Greek 
race. Long before the Republic was written, probably before 
Plato was born, the Hellenic conception of happiness, as 
determined by this contrast, had found immortal expression in 
the story of Solon and Croesus. It is clear that Aristotle 
knew the work of Herodotus, and in all probability both he 
and Plato were influenced by it. An allusion to it occurs in 
Aristotle’s Zhics, just where he is discussing the conditions ot 
human happiness (Book i. 10, 1.). I cite a portion of the 
imaginary conversation, which places the contrast above 
mentioned in the strongest light; the supreme examples of 
happiness selected, according to the story, by the great 
Athenian statesman, being examples of splendid achievement 
in the service of the state and of the family, in a completed! 
and prosperous life, as opposed to the mere possession of the 
apparatus of luxury and power, on which the typical despot 
founded his claim to felicity. The conception of Herodotus 
is marred for us by his Ionian pessimism, to which rather the 


1 J am strongly inclined to think that Aristotle’s expression ‘a complete 
life’ is suggested by the content of the stories ascribed to Solon by 
Herodotus. 


GREEK HAPPINESS 29 


negative than the positive ! completeness of life is the impor- 
tant aspect ; but in spite of this the Greek spirit shines through 
his words. 

‘On the third or fourth day,? by order of Croesus, the 
attendants took Solon round the treasure-houses and showed 
him the vast wealth that was in them. When he had. seen 
the whole and had been given full opportunity to examine it, 
Croesus asked him, ‘‘ Athenian stranger, we have heard much 
of you and your wisdom and your journeyings, how in the 
pursuit of knowledge* you have traversed many lands in order 
to observe® them ; now therefore I have a desire to ask you if 
you have seen any one who is the happiest® of all men.” 
Now, he asked this, thinking that himself was the happiest of 
men. But Solon, in no way flattering him, but speaking the 
truth,’ replied, “O King, Tellos the Athenian.” And Croesus, 
amazed at what was said, asked him sharply, ‘‘ What makes 
you judge Tellos to be the happiest man?” And Solon 
answered, “ Tellos in the first place lived when his city was 
prosperous, and he had sons who were true gentlemen, all of 
whom had children born to them in his lifetime, and lost 
none of them ; and in the second place, while he was still 
well off according to our reckoning,* a most brilliant ending of 


1 7,e. the ending rather than the filling. 2 Herodotus, i. 30-32. 

3 A curious parallel to the Temptation, ‘all the kingdoms of the world 
and the glory of them,—if thou wilt fall down and worship me.’ The 
Greek story is so much less picturesque and intense, that we may fail to 
note the identity of the thought. 4 Lit. ‘ philosophising.’ 

> Quite lit. ‘for the sake of theory,’ the word ‘theoria’ meaning to a 
Greek ‘seeing for seeing’s sake’; often as here=‘sight-seeing.’ The 
reversal of meaning which the word has undergone is interesting. 

§ Not the philosopher’s word ‘ eudaimon,’ but one which rather implies 
‘ prosperity.’ 

7 Lit. ‘ making use of what 2s,’ or ‘of being,’ quite a current term for 
truth or fact. This illustrates Plato’s usage. 

8 A clear antithesis of the Greek with the Asiatic notion of wealth ; 
‘ Greece is always poor,’ Herodotus says elsewhere ; but what suffices for a 
true Greek life is enough. The very word for ‘ wealth’ or ‘ substance,’ lit. 
‘life,’ indicates this. 


30 INTRODUCTION 


life came upon him; for there was a battle at Eleusis 
between Athens and the neighbouring city, and Tellos 
having headed a charge and put the enemy to flight, fell 
by a most splendid death; and the Athenians buried him! 
at the public cost there where he fell, and greatly honoured 
him.’ . 

‘And when Solon had thus excited Croesus by his narrative 
of the manifold happiness of Tellos, the king asked him whom 
he had seen that was next happiest after him, hoping at least 
to carry off the second prize. But Solon said, ‘Kleobis and 
Bito. These were Argives; they had sufficient substance,? 
and in addition to this such bodily force that both of them 
were prize-winners. And the following story is told. The 
Argives were holding a festival to Hera, and it was absolutely 
necessary for the mother of these two to be driven in her 
waggon to the temple, but the team did not come up from the 
farm at the appointed time, and being urged by the lateness 
of the hour the young men went themselves under the yoke 
and drew the waggon, in which their mother rode, between 
four and five miles’ distance to the temple. And when they 
had done this, and the whole assembly had seen it, there 
came upon them an excellent ending of life, and in this the 
god revealed that it was better for a man to die than to live. 
The Argive men stood round about, and were congratulating 
the youths on their strength, and the Argive women congratu- 
lated their mother that she had such children. And the 
mother, rejoicing at the deed and its repute, stood before the 
image and prayed for Kleobis and Bito, her children, who 


1 The zatveté with which Herodotus runs on to include in the happiness 
of Tellos matters which took place after his death illustrates the paradox of 
duty as it appears in Aristotle’s conception of courage. It is not the man’s 
personal satisfaction, but the adequacy of the supreme self-sacrifice to the 
relations which demand it, which both the historian and the philosopher 
have in view. The whole together, family, sufficient wealth, a prosperous 
society, enough length ‘of days to see his children’s children, a brilliant 
self-sacrifice recognised and accepted by society, make up the ‘complete’ 
life. 2 Lit. ‘life.’ 


GREEK HAPPINESS 31 


had greatly honoured her, that the goddess would give them 
what was best for a man to have. And after her prayer, 
when they had sacrificed and banqueted, the young men lay 
down to sleep in the temple, and never rose up again, but 
ended in that close. And the Argives! had statues made of 
them, and set them up at Delphi, as having been the best of 
men.’ Thus Solon gave to these the second rank in happi- 
ness ;? and Croesus was vexed, and said, ‘O Athenian 
stranger, is our happiness® so cast aside by you as naught, 
that you have not counted us the equals even of private 
persons?’ But Solon answered ‘O Croesus, you are asking 
about human fortunes of me, who know that the divinity is 
altogether jealous‘ (envious) and turbulent.’ 

The passage which follows includes the famous saying 
that no one is to be counted happy till his life is ended. In 
it we cannot but notice the words (ch. 32), ‘No human 
body is self-sufficing; it has one thing, but is lacking in 
another,’ in comparison with Republic 369 B, ‘no one of us 
is self-sufficing, but (all are) lacking in many things.’ 
Herodotus made the remark in insisting on the impossibility 
of one man having all good things. Plato gives it a different 
turn. : 

The democratic ideal of the best minds in the age of 
Pericles, as conceived by Thucydides, is expressed in the 
funeral oration ascribed to the great statesman as spoken in 
the first year of the Peloponnesian war. It may be well to 
insert some extracts from it for comparison with Plato. 


1 A conclusion of the same kind as in the former story. 

? This is ‘eudaimonia,’ the philosopher’s word. Herodotus obviously 
attaches no importance to the usage. 

3 “Eudaimonia.’ 

4 This idea is definitely challenged both by Plato and Aristotle. See 
Phaedr. 247A, Republic 379¢ andv, Arist. Metaph. i. 2: ‘the divine 
cannot be envious, but as the proverb says ‘‘singers tell many lies.”’ 
Here we note the breach with primitive superstition, parallel to the 
transition from Judaism to .Christianity—from the ‘jealous God’ to the 
God in man. 


32 INTRODUCTION 


Always remember that two-thirds of the population were > 
slaves. 

‘Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with 
the institutions of others. We do not copy our neighbours, 
but are an example to them. It is true that we are called 
a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the 
many and not of the few. But while the law secures equal 
justice to all alike in their private disputes, the claim of 
excellence is also recognised; and when a citizen is in any 
way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not 
as a matter of privilege but as a reward of merit. Neither 
is poverty a bar, but a man may benefit his country what- 
ever be the obscurity of his condition. There is no exclusive- 
ness in our public life, and in our private intercourse we are 
not suspicious of one another, nor angry with our neighbour 
if he does what he likes ; we do not put on sour looks at 
him, which, though harmless, are not pleasant. While we are 
thus unconstrained in our public intercourse, a spirit of 
reverence pervades our public acts; we are prevented from 
doing wrong by respect for authority, and for the laws, 
having an especial regard to those which are ordained for 
the protection Of the injured, as well as to those unwritten 
laws which bring upon the transgressor of them the reproba- 
tion of the general sentiment. 

‘And we have not forgotten to provide for our weary spirits 
many relaxations from toil; we have regular games? and 
sacrifices throughout the year; at home the style of our life 
is refined, and the delight which we daily feel in all these 
things helps to banish melancholy. Because of the greatness 
of our city the fruits of the whole earth flow in upon us; so 
that we enjoy the goods of other countries as freely as of our 
own.’ 

‘For we are lovers of the beautiful,* though simple in our 

1 Thucyd. ii. 37. Cp. Mr. Grant’s Greece in the Age of Pericles, c. vii. 


2 Competitions, including the theatrical performances in which the 
dramatists competed. 8 Cig. 


GREEK HAPPINESS 33 


tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness. 
Wealth we employ, not for talk and ostentation, but when 
there is a real use for it. To avow poverty with us is no 
disgrace ; the true disgrace is in doing nothing to avoid it. 
An Athenian citizen does not neglect the state because he 
takes care of his own household; and even those of us who 
are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. We 
alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs not 
as a harmless, but as a useless, character ; and if few of us are 
originators we are all sound judges of a policy. The great 
impediment to action is, in our opinion, not discussion, but 
' the want of that knowledge which is gained by discussion 
preparatory to action. 

1*fo sum up: I say that Athens is the school of Hellas, 
and that the individual Athenian in his own person seems to 
have the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms 
of action with the utmost versatility and grace.’ 


VIII—HINTS ON THE STRUCTURE OF 
THE REPUBLIC. 

The Republic as we have it is unquestionably a coherent 
whole, and the variations of standpoint which it exhibits do 
not exceed those to which every work of great compass is 
liable. In considering whether an ancient writing was com- 
posed as a single book or whether parts of it were intended 
to exist as separate works, it appears to me that we are too 
much guided by the analogies of modern printing and 
publishing. Every work of great compass takes a long time 
to write, and it is not clear how far, for the Greek in Plato’s 
age, there was a definite epoch of publication implying that 
what was published had attained a final form. With us the 
necessities of printing make publication a final and decisive 
step in the history of a book, which cannot be modified after 
publication except by a new edition; and when the multipli- 
cation of Ms. copies came to be thoroughly organised in 

1 Cu 4t 
Cc 


34 INTRODUCTION 


establishments existing for the purpose, the same difference 
between what had and what had not been published would 
be practically recognised. But so long as copying was carried 
on on a small scale, or under the author’s eye, I cannot see 
how any definite date of publication could be spoken of. 
For dramatic literature the date of representation would 
occupy this place; but the composition of a philosophical 
work might extend over many years, during which copies of 
portions of it might pass into circulation, and the author’s 
views might alter, without detriment to his intention of 
ultimately completing it on a certain plan, which might also 
remodel itself during the execution. If we were to suggest, 
for example, that certain portions of some modern book were 
published together at a certain date, and reissued ten or 
fifteen years later with alterations and insertions, that would 
be a definite contention which could be established by pro- 
duction of the printed volume. But the doubt arises whether 
such a suggestion has any meaning under ancient conditions 
of publication. If copies were issued of parts of the dialogue, 
even of some of the later parts before those which now 
precede them, that need not in any degree imply that Plato 
even for the moment considered his plan to be completed, 
although it is no less impossible to show the contrary. If 
Plato had never meant the work as we have it to be a single 
treatise, that would be a serious matter. But the constant 
references from part to part show plainly that this is not so, 
and everything short of this seems to be purely a matter of 
degree, involving details of Plato’s intention and of the time 
over which the composition of the work may have extended, 
which are wholly irrecoverable by mere comparison of the 
parts of the dialogue. No doubt the psychology of Book tv. 
is extended in Books vir. and Ix.; the ‘first’ education is 
criticised at the beginning of the second; the impotence of 
God in ii. 379 is scarcely reconcilable with the all-pervading 
‘form of the good’ in Books vi. and vul.; the Hellenic city 
which is described down to v. 471, changes its character as 


STRUCTURE OF REPUBLIC 35 


the ultimate end of life and nature of the world come into 
view in the philosophical commonwealth. But even if Plato’s 
plan underwent discontinuous enlargement, the welds are 
now unbreakable, and, I incline to think, undiscoverable (see 
notes on Book v.); and there is no absolute or external test, 
such as the event of publication affords to-day, by which we 
could tell, even if our knowledge of facts were far more 
complete, whether or no any part of the dialogue was ever 
regarded by its author as a separate work. 

The five ‘natural divisions’ of the dialogue (Jowett) may 
be briefly characterised as follows :— 

1. Book 1., beginning—u. 367. Prologue, showing the 
rise of the moral problem out of everyday life, and out of the 
current theories of the time. 

2. Book ul. 368—yv. 471. First answer to the moral 
problem, by specifying the system implied in the existence of 
the moral being—‘my station and its duties’—as external 
type, and also as content, of the true morality or inward will. 

3. Book v. 471—to end of Book vir. Second answer to 
the moral problem. Ideal morality, or philosophic religion, 
and its real or metaphysical basis. 

4. Books vu. and rx. Negative verification of the con- 
nection between well-doing and well-being, by concomitant 
variations of ill-doing and ill-being. 

5. Book x. Psychological corroboration of the criticism 
passed upon unreal appearance, pointing out the connection 
between the unreal in cognition and in feeling. 


Books TO READ.—On Republic as a whole, R. L. Nettleship’s Essay in 
Hellenica; Excursus on Greek Ethics, by Wallace, in translation of 
Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind. For changes imminent in Plato’s age, add - 
to the Histories of Greece Wallace’s Zpicureantsm and Butcher’s 
Demosthenes, both of which are on a small scale. See also Warde Fowler’s 
City State. 


NV.B.—Figures printed as 1. 1, refer to the page and line 
of Davies and Vaughan’s translation (Macmillan & Co.). 
In references and section-headings these are followed by 
the ‘marginal page,’ which is given throughout on the 
outer margin. See Preface. 


REP UBL LC 


BOOK I 


I. I, 327 A—2. 20, 328 B. 


This descriptive opening, with its life and colour, reminds us 
of those dialogues which we naturally take to be the earlier of 
Plato's writings, such as the Charmides or Protagoras. In 
the Philebus, Sophist, and Laws the argument begins abruptly. 

Its picturesqueness ts blent, though quite naturally, with sig- 
nificance. ‘All things come to Athens, or her great harbour 
town Petraeus, new religions among them, especially towards 
the end of the 5th century B.c. And the Athenian finds them 
all ‘worth seeing. Plato's enjoyment of sheer seeing ts like 
Dante's. 


Sect. 1. 


I. 1. ‘To Peiraeus.’ A walk of about five miles, within the 327 A 


long walls. 

3. ‘Then to be held for the first time.’ 38. 13, 354 A, 
shows that the festival was in honour of Bendis, a Thracian 
goddess, worshipped with orgiastic ritual, and sometimes 
identified with Artemis. The introduction of such a worship 
illustrates the religious conditions of the time (see the Bacchae 
of Euripides). Plato, however, shows no dislike of the’ cele- 
bration at Peiraeus. 


13. ‘Where his master was,’ literally, ‘where himself was.’ B 


Some readers will recall the Scotch usage of ‘ himsel’’ to indi- 
cate an important personage. 
37 


Sect. 2. 


328 B 


B 


Cc 


38 COMPANION TO PLATO’S REPUBLIC 
2. 20, 328 B—O, 2, 331 B. 


Preliminary conversation. The experience of life anticipates 
the conclusions of philosophy. 


2. 20-25. This Lysias was the great orator, and we learn 
from his speeches against Eratosthenes that his father Cephalus 
was not an Athenian by birth, but a resident alien, whom 
Pericles had persuaded to come to Athens. Lysias and 
Polemarchus possessed a shield factory, which they probably 
inherited. We are to think of Cephalus, not as the Athenian 
aristocrat, but rather as the cultivated manufacturer or mer- 
chant-prince, residing, no doubt, in a good house, but in a 
commercial or industrial quarter. He accepted, we are told, 
the burdens of an Athenian citizen, and lived for thirty years, 
unharming and unharmed, under the popular government. 
But long after the death of Cephalus the reactionary oligarchy 
of the Thirty (404 B.c.) seized Lysias and Polemarchus as 
wealthy aliens, and though Lysias escaped, Polemarchus was 
summarily ordered to drink the hemlock. His fate, as well 
as that of Socrates, was, of course, in Plato’s mind when this 
dialogue was written (see below, 300-302. 566-7). The dra- 
matic date of the dialogue is of no importance. But I cannot 
reconcile the suggestion that Cephalus died in 444 B.c. with 
the statements of Lysias. There is no reason, however, to 
defend Plato against the imputation of anachronism. Hewas 
wholly careless on such points. 

22. ‘Chalcedon,’ on the Bosphorus, opposite Byzantium. ° 
Thrasymachus is mentioned elsewhere in Plato. It was 
characteristic of the ‘Sophists’ or professors that they were 
not stationary in any one city, but appeared as distinguished 
foreigners. ‘The brilliant diversity of Greek life was greatly 
due to the fact that men of such different countries and types 
could, as Greeks, so easily hold intercourse. 

30. ‘It is seldom—that you pay usa visit.’ A hexameter 
ending, perhaps echoing the courteous words of Hephaestus 
to Thetis, Jad xviii. 325: ‘Dear and honoured god- 


BOOK J. 39 


dess, what brings you to our house? You are but a rare 
visitor.’ 

35 ff. ‘Iassure youthatI find.” The keynote of the dialogue 328 D 
is struck at once. There is.no enduring satisfaction that is 
not dependent on intelligence. See the criticism of pleasures, 
321. 30, 583 B. 

3. 6. ‘ The threshold of age’: a phrase used by Homer and E 
Hesiod, recalling the melancholy representation which the 
poets usually give of old age, as in the case of Laertes in the 
Odyssey. Their descriptions are criticised by implication in 
the following passage. The constant conversational reference 
to the poets helps us to understand Plato’s treatment of them, | 
while it is also the vehicle of that treatment. 

10. The old proverb, ‘ Like to like,’ eg. in Odyssey 329 A 
xvii. 218. 

18. ‘Living well’: a pregnant phrase, because it implies 
an ideal of human life. Thus, in 38. 1, 353 E, 354 A, it is 
used as the middle term to connect morality with happiness, 
and Aristotle employs it to designate the purpose for which 
civic society exists. But in these deeper applications it 
never loses the attachment to actual life which it has in the 
present passage. It is never mere ‘goodness,’ but always ‘a 
good life for man,’ or ‘a life that satisfies a human being as 
such,’ 

35- ‘Asif I had escaped from being the slave of a mad- 


? 


man.’ The passions, as tyrant and his bodyguard, see 308. C 
573 E- 
4. 1. ‘The character of the men.’ D 


Character is the secret of happiness, not circumstance. 

14. Seriphus is an insignificant island among the Cyclades. 
Note that Plato had no technical language ; and the anecdote 
takes its place by enshrining a logical point, the distinction, 
between cause and condition. Wealth may be a condition of 
happiness, but.is certainly not its cause. This simple conver- 
sation raises the great problem of the relation between happi- 
ness and external goods, and anticipates the conclusion to 


40 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


which Plato and Aristotle adhered. Their view is easily 
parodied, see Milton, Paradise Regained : 


‘The third! in virtue placed felicity, ‘ 
But virtue joined with riches and long life.’ 


The conception cannot be fully grasped without appre- 
ciating the whole interdependence between ‘life’ and ‘ good 
life,’ as embodied in the moral ideas of Plato and Aristotle. 
(See Introduction on Solon and Croesus.) 

40. Cp. Ar. £¢th. Vic. iv. 1. 20, clearly borrowed from this 
passage. 

330C 5.6. ‘Greatest advantage,’ literally ‘greatest good.’ Good 
is here used quite colloquially, but is the same word which 
subsequently appears in ‘form of the good.’ Our word ‘good,’ 
which is said to contain the same root, follows its meanings 
very fairly. It generally means good for some purpose, or in 
some especial way—‘ good at boxing,’ ‘it is not good for a 
beggar to be modest,’ ‘a good king,’ etc. Socrates said,? ‘ If 
you ask me about a good which is good for nothing, I don’t 
know it, and I don’t care for it.’ Just because it is so often 
defined by context it has no positive implication of its own, 
such as is conveyed by ‘ beautiful,’ ‘ pleasant,’ ‘useful.’ When 
undefined, it has to be interpreted by the general context. 
Applied thus generally to persons, it often seems to indicate 
bravery or gentle birth and breeding ; applied in the same 
way to things, it may mean good in any sense in which we 
use the term—always, perhaps, with a rather comprehensive 
suggestion of value, simply because the reservation ‘good for 
this or that’ is left out. Here ‘advantage ’—+#.e. anything that 
promotes any current purpose of life—is quite a fair transla- 
tion. (See preliminary description of the good, 226. 505 E.) 
DPD 11. ‘About things which never affected him before.’ This 
reference to the future life anticipates the myth of the tenth 
book, which supports the feeling of Cephalus that the good 
man has ground for hope. Note that this whole conversation 


1 Aristotle. 2 Xen. Memorabilia, iii. 8. 3. 


BOOK J. 41 


is not merely a means of introducing a criticism of common 
opinion, but indicates the da¢a furnished in the healthy moral 
consciousness, which philosophy has to theorise. That ele- 
ment, however, which is thrown into the myth is thereby 
admitted to fall outside the strict theory. 

13. ‘Done wrong here, must suffer for it.” These words 330 D 

introduce the idea of ‘Justice,’ first in a negative form. 
‘Done wrong’=literally ‘Has acted unjustly’; ‘suffer for 
it’=‘ pay the penalty’ (dik2), same word as ‘ justice’ or ‘ trial,’ 
The positive word also occurs as an adverb ‘justly,’ 5. 29, 
331 A, below. The acts which seem to Cephalus to constitute 
justice are put together, 5, 36, 331 B, but without mentioning 
justice. This putting together a number of acts, instead of 
eliciting their principle, is characteristic of ‘opinion.’ (See 
194. 479 E-) 

18. ‘The confines of the future state ’—‘ those mysteries.’ 330 E 
It is no doubt necessary, in many instances, to modernise the 
Greek idiom in translating by supplying a substantive in agree- 
ment with the neuter of the article, pronoun, or adjective. But 
none the less it is modernisation, and the English reader 
should be warned of it in all serious cases. Here a more 
literal translation would be ‘being now nearer to the (things) 
over there’ (regular phrase for the other world), ‘he sees 
them better.’ But even ‘things’ is an insertion. Cp. ‘Das 
Jenseits,’ ‘ The beyond.’ 

6, 1. ‘This service.’ In sum, then, the use of wealth is as 331 B 
a means to goodness. 


6. 3, 331 B—7. 9, 332 A. Sect. 3. 


The rule of formal honesty is not an adequate account of 
justice. 

8. ‘For example, every one.’ These examples show that C 
in a conceivable case the action prescribed by the rule would 
be, not just, but unjust; ze. the rule is not adequate to our 
moral consciousness, but expresses only a part of it. 

18. ‘Definition,’ the same word which in Aristotle’s logic D 


331 E 


Sect. 4. 


42 COMPANION TO PLATO’S REPUBLIC 


stands for ‘term’ or ‘definition.’ . Its first meaning is limit or 
boundary, and it has not here, of course, its later technical 
force. Perhaps ‘this is not the right demarcation of justice 
(from injustice).’ 

22. ‘If we are to believe Simonides.’ Simonides is ap- 
pealed to almost as the Bible might be appealed to now. In 
37. 331 E, the word ‘inspired’ is literally ‘divine,’ a common 
epithet of admiration for poets and singers, probably convey- 
ing some idea of their direct dependence on Apollo or the 
Muses; of course there was no formulated theory of a specific 
revelation made through them; on the contrary, it was as 
mouthpieces of traditional sentiment that they had their 
authority. The relation of the Jewish literature to us is far 
more artificial, and therefore has been more dogmatically 
formulated. But for this very reason, again, the influence of 
the Greek poets on the Greeks was more intimate than that 
of the Bible on us; and Plato, in criticising them, criticises 
the national past. 

34. ‘ That to restore to each man,’ etc.—‘ is just.’- Note, 
first, that the sentence has not the form of a true definition. 
It says not ‘Justice is this,’ but ‘This is just.’ Probably the 
young man’s inexperience in dialectic is thus indicated. The 
word rendered ‘ due’ is the passive participle of the verb ‘to 
owe’; that which is owed—in the simplest sense—as an actual 
object that has been lent. The definition is the same as that 
of Cephalus, and breaks down under the same treatment as 
before. 


7. 10, 332 A—7. 28, 332 C. 


A modification in the definition ts suggested—substituling 
‘suitable’ for ‘owed, so that the rule may allow of varying 
conduct according to circumstances; as a corollary, ‘good 1s 
“ suttable” to friends, harm to enemies.’ 


27. ‘Appropriate’: ‘fitting’ or ‘becoming’/—simply a 
more general word than ‘ what is owed,’ and therefore allow- 
ing more free interpretation according to circumstances. The 


BOOK J. 43 


irony with which Plato interprets Simonides acts as a criticism 
on the appeal to the poets, and on the methods of interpreta- 
tion which it involved. The dialogue is full of this irony. 
(See below, 100. 26, 404 B, on Homer’s advice as to diet.) 


7. 28, 332 C—IO. 28, 334 C. Sect. 5. 


Criticism of the modified definition begun. The proposed 
vule, as such, deals with external actions, and not with moral 
disposition. The criticism is a reduction to absurdity— 

(i.) of morality as capacity without will. 
(ii.) of morality as will without capacity. 


7. 30. Literally, ‘The art rendering what due and appro- 332 C 
priate things to what, is called medical art’; ‘That which 
(renders) drugs, etc., to bodies’; and so on. There is 
nothing about ‘ recipients,’ and the sentences are not broken 
up as the translators are forced to break them. Thus the 
sentence ‘Seasoning is the thing rendered; dishes are the 
recipients,’ consists of five words in the Greek—‘ That which 
(renders) seasoning to dishes.’ This contrast in the languages 
will be of great importance when we come to deal with the 
expression of philosophical ideas. 

41. ‘The art that we are to call justice.’ We are startled D 
at finding the discussion to deal first, not with the kind of 
purpose ascribed to goodness, but with the skill requisite to 
carry it out (‘who is best able?’ 8. 6, 332 D). We are 
not accustomed to think of goodness as an ‘art,’ or skilled 
and disciplined habit of action. This idea is always present 
to Plato; here, however, partly no doubt in fun, and partly as 
a criticism on the accidental or external nature of the sug- 
gested rule, he sets himself first to show that the good man, 
as such, has no special skill, and then that he is useless with- 
out it. Yet he does not mention the good will, and, in fact, 
by pushing the detachment of goodness from ability so far as 
he does, even the content of the good will would be destroyed 
—a result in which he humorously delights as a criticism of 
the mere well-meaning person. 


44 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


333A 8.40. ‘Ofcovenants.’ Not, ‘for the acquisition of cove- 


Séct. 6. 


nants,’ but, in answer to the question ‘ What is he good for?’ 
‘He is of use with reference to covenants.’ 


B 9. 13. ‘The horse-dealer is better.’ It may be said that 


this assumes the horse-dealer to be honest. Perhaps Plato 
might answer that he was being considered gua horse-dealer 
and not gua money-maker. (See 25. 36, 345 D.) 

9. 27—I0. 1, 333 E. ‘So that justice,’ etc. Goodness 
cannot be identified with any special sphere of action; this 
much was true; but if it has no sphere at all, it is faith with- 
out works, the internal without the external will, which is 
impossible. ‘This is a shrewd criticism by anticipation of the 
modern or purely ‘inward’ notion of goodness. 

10. 2 to the end of the section is pure fun, only sain on 
a serious meaning in the quite just allusion to Homer’s Auto- 
lycus (also made by Grote, Part 1. c. 20), with which Plato 
points his humorous allegation that great poets think knavery 
a fine thing. The sophism which connects goodness with 
thieving consists in interpreting the negative quality of the 
well-meaning man—that he can do nothing with money 
except keep it—z.e. abstain from embezzling it—as positive 
skill in defending it from predatory persons. This would 
really involve the kind of ability which the predatory person 
has, and such ability, the element of will being neglected, is 
sophistically taken as identifying the just man with the pre- 
datory person. 


I0. 29, 334 B—I2. 2, 335 B. 


This argument, like that of 17. 36, 339 C below, uses the 
admission that error ts possible in judging of the test quality, 
to suggest that the test must be something more ‘ objective’ 
than the definition has laid down. Tf you are to treat men 
well or tl according to their qualities, at least take the ster- 
ling quality of goodness as your guide, not the mere good- 
ness to you which will bring you into contradiction with the 
veal qualities of the man. In both cases this argument 


BOOK J. 45 


Srom possible error naturally leads to a treatment on the 
merits. 


10. 27. ‘To love all whom he thinks honest.’ This is 334 C 
strange to our romantic views. We like our friends, we are 
apt to say, because we like them, not because they are 
virtuous. But Aristotle’s developed theory of friendship 
echoes this passage. ¢hics, vili. 3: ‘ But the perfect kind of 
friendship is that of good men who resemble one another in 
virtue.’ Aristotle acutely points out that passion is fugitive 
unless deepened into a regard for character, Zc. 

II, 11. ‘It is just to do evil to those who commit no D 
injustice,’ if your rule is to do evil to your enemies, who 
may be good. This result shocks common morality. The 
definition meant to treat people according to what they are ; 
but by taking too casual a test it has led to the opposite of 
its intention. 

II, 20. ‘ Because in their eyes they are wicked’; rather, E 
‘because they have wicked friends.’ If, again, your rule is to 
do evil to the wicked, you will have to do evil to your friend, 
which contradicts the law of Simonides. 

38. ‘Then you would have us attach.’ The definition 335 A 
is amended by simply limiting it to cases when there is no 
mistake, and when the qualities which serve as criteria are as. 
‘objective ’ as qualities which separate men into classes can be. 


I2. 3, 335 B—I3. 13, 335 E. Sect. 7 
Error arising from personal relations being ruled out, it 
remains to consider ‘on the merits’ whether men’s qualities 
are to be reproduced in the intention (not merely the practical 
methods) of our behaviour to them. Are we to ‘do to others as 
we know they would do to us’? The argument says No, on 
the ground that to injurea human being as such ts to injure 
him in his distinctively human quality, viz., righteousness, 21 ; 
and therefore if it were righteous to act thus, righteousness 
would be self-destructive. 


335 B 


‘a 


46 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


12. 6 ff. ‘To hurt’ may=‘to give pain’ or ‘to damage.’ 
The Greek word is very general, and does not specially sug- 
gest the former meaning. Its root-idea is, perhaps, ‘ to 
hinder.’ In all argument, and especially in Plato’s informal dia- 
lectic, the sense of the terms employed must be gathered from 
the use made of them. Here he is plainly considering the case 
in which damage or injury to some one is our purpose in act- 
ing, and, if so, we must clearly be debited with the moral harm 
that may ensue, and not credited with any incidental good. 

16. ‘Lowered in the scale of human excellence.’ The 
conception of a distinctive excellence anticipates the im- 
portant argument of 36-7. 353 below. Compare also 69. 380, 
and 332. 591, which shows how Plato’s theory of punishment 
harmonises with the view of this passage. 

19. ‘Justice a human excellence.’ (See 36-7. 353-4.) 

21. ‘Those men who are hurt must necessarily be rendered 
less just.’ Compare Shelley, ‘I wish no living thing to suffer 
pain.’ If the question is considered from the side of mere 
feeling, it concerns all sentient beings, but has no really pro- 
found application to man. Plato motives the golden rule by 
effect on character, and thereby discloses its deepest meaning 
and provides against sentimentalism. 

23. ‘Can musicians, by the art of music.’ Comparison of 


- morality to certain forms of skill. It is quite untrue to 


suggest that this implies an ‘esthetic’ view of morality. The 
juxtaposition of music and riding, as equally good examples, 
shows that what we think the peculiar quality of fine art had, 
for Plato, nothing to do with the question. Shoemaking, 
agriculture, medicine, bricklaying, are just as apposite in- 
stances for him as music and sculpture. It is true that he 
sometimes distinguished the productive arts from what we call 
the fine arts, but not true that he conceived the latter as 
closer parallels to morality. The argument here is simply 
that a reasonable habit or system of action—reasonable in 
having an aim which gives it unity—cannot turn against itself, 
must, in short, be consistent. 


BOOK I. 47 


40. ‘ Not of good, but of its opposite, to hurt.’ If we bear 
in mind the distinction between paining and damaging, we 
see that this does not contradict the Christian paradox, ‘ Not 
peace, but a sword.’ 


13. 10. ‘In no instance is it just to injure anybody.’ This 335 E 


is a fundamental conviction with Plato, not a paradox of 
dialectic: cf. Crito, 49 a.D. The conclusion is there dased 
upon the evil to the wrongdoer, and applied fo the injury 
which Socrates would be inflicting upon his city if he set the 
laws at defiance by escaping from the prison. ‘There, as here, 
the principle is supported on the ground of its relation to 
character, although here the wrongdoer is not the first person 
considered. 


13. 11, 335 E—27, 336A. 

We cannot admit that the faulty definition comes from poets 
and sages, but it really must have come from some splendid 
tyrant, or foreign despot, or powerful party leader. 


13. 12. ‘You and I will make common cause against any 
one who shall attribute this doctrine to Simonides, or Bias, 
or Pittacus.’ The usual double-edged irony, ‘It is so bad 
that they could not have meant it,’ and ‘No doubt we can 
explain it away—by the current critical methods.’ Bias and 
Pittacus were of the number of the Seven Sages, and both, it 
seems, were poets. Pittacus was for a time despot of Mitylene. 


Sect. 8. 


21. ‘Periander, Perdiccas, Xerxes, Ismenias.’ Ismenias, a 336 A 


Theban party leader, became prominent in 395 B.c. The 
mention of him is an anachronism, to whatever incident in his 
life reference may be made. ‘The humorous juxtaposition of 
despotic rulers, or party leaders relying on violence, with the 
poets, as authorities on morality, is characteristic of this 
dialogue, in which the imitative artist is the incarnation of 
intellectual and emotional illusion, as the unlawful ruler is of 
illusion concerning happiness. (See especially Adeimantus in 
Book tu, and the reference to tragedians as panegyrists of 


tyranny 303. 3, 568 B.) 


Sect. 9. 


B 


337 A 


48 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


25. ‘Since we have again failed.’ The translation is over- 
charged. Better, ‘Since this again turns out not to be the 
nature,’ etc. Plato seems to feel quite justly that these dis- 
cussions about abstract terms do not suffice to grasp the 
nature of morality. Yet a fair amount of prefatory criticism 
has been applied. It has been shown that respect for pro- 
perty is an inadequate account of righteousness, even in its 
simple form of honesty ; that morality is not mere ability, but 
that without some ability there cannot be real morality; that 
personal friendship and enmity are no guides to the right 
treatment of persons: that goodness excludes malevolence, 


not from mere repugnance to giving pain, but from respect 
for character. 


13. 28, 336 B—I6, 29, 338 B: 


Sparring, preliminary to the new definition. This passage, 
more than any other, has influenced the popular notion of a 
sophist. We can now see how Plato is delighting in his furious 
satire; cf. the reception of religionists in Newman’s Loss and 
Gain. Extravagant comedy of this kind carries with it a warn- 
ing against taking it seriously. At the same time we could 
hardly say that in other instances, such as Aristophanes on 
Socrates, Newman (l.c.) on Exeter Hall, Schopenhauer on 
Hegel, or Mansel on Professors in ‘ Phrontisterion,’ there were 
no features at all to explain if not to justify the caricature. 


14. 7. ‘Let me beg you to beware of defining it as,’ etc. 
This enumeration of abstractions shows how full the air was 
of commonplaces. We may fancy, perhaps, that Thrasy- 
machus, who himself employs one of these abstractions in his 
definition (‘ expedient,’=‘ interest,’ see 17.25, 339 A), prided 
himself—I. On the social reference of his formula; II. On its 
consisting not ina single abstraction but in a generality and 
limit, such as Aristotle was afterwards to call definition by 
genus and species. 


35. ‘Mock-humility,’ ‘feign ignorance,’ literally ‘Irony’ and 


BOOK J. 49 


‘be ironical.’ The translation is quite correct. Irony has 
now come to be loosely understood, so that it is only just dis- 
tinguished from sarcasm. But the primary meaning is that of 
dissembling or reserving one’s own powers. See Aristotle’s 
Ethics, iv. 7, where the ‘ironical man’ occupies one extreme 
in matters of social intercourse, and the ‘ boaster’ the other. 
Both ‘ extremes’ are faulty ; the ‘mean,’ or laudable habit, is 
that of ‘truthfulness’ or ‘true modesty.’ Reserve, and a 
critical attitude, are of course closely connected. 

15. 3- ‘What factors make the number 12,’ literally, ‘how 337 B 
many ‘“‘twelve” is.’ The assumption of the answers, that 
definition must in some way analyse the term defined, is note- 
worthy at this early period. 

37. ‘You must make me a payment.’ This demand, in aD 
social conversation initiated by the man who makes it, is 
probably part of the caricature. But it illustrates what we 
find hard to understand, the disagreeable associations in the 
Greek mind of teaching general culture for pay. The subjects 
taught were only beginning to be specialised, and such culture 
was imparted through conversation. To ask a fee for such 
teaching was, therefore, to a Greek gentleman, much what it - 
would be to-day for a man to require payment for his talk at 
a party. Of course, on the other hand, we strongly condemn 
any attempt to extract an opinion without fee from a lawyer 
or doctor. The question seems to be in each case how far 
there is a recognised professional relation. 


16. 30, 338 C—I7. 36, 339 B. Sect. 10. 
Definition stated and explained. Justice is wholly social, or 

rather political. It consists, for the subjects of every govern- 

ment, in their obeying the laws which that government imposes 

with a view to its own interest, and so, generally, for the weaker 

in their subservience to the interest of the stronger. 


17. 3. ‘Some cities are governed by an autocrat,’ etc. The 338 D 
appeal to political obligation brings into the discussion a 
D 


339 A 


B 


Sect. 11. 


Cc 


340 B 


50 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


fresh element, related to the facts of society, and paving the 
way for the main argument of the dialogue. ‘By a democracy.’ 
In as far as a democracy stands for the whole society without 
exclusion of any element, its devotion to its own interests 
could not be blameworthy. But to the Greek theorist, though 
not perhaps to the Periclean statesman, a democracy, even if 
it included the whole numerically, would not include all its 
elements according to their value. See Newman’s introduc- 
tion to Aristotle’s Politics, p. 247. Aristotle’s classification of 
constitutions, three ‘ right’ as for the common advantage, and 
three ‘perversions’ of them, as for the advantage of the rulers, 
plainly derives from this passage and the discussion founded 
upon it. 

26. ‘Have defined Justice as interest.’ (See on I4. 7 
above.) 

34. ‘ That justice is in harmony with interest,’ literally, ‘ that 
justice is some interest’ (a species of interest). This usage of 
the indefinite pronoun became technical in Aristotle. (See on 
Book x. ‘a particular bed,’ 337. 32, 597 A.) 


17. 37, 339 B—I9. 11, 340 ©. 

Argument from admission that error is possible. See Sect. 6 
above. The possibility of error implies a further standard by 
which the assumed standard can be tested ; i.e. in this case that 
there is something which determines a ‘true’ interest for the 
stronger. As before, the argument leads up to a discussion on 
the merits. 


18. 3. ‘Sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly.’ Strictly 
speaking, according to the definition, there was no right or 
wrong for the stronger or sovereign as such, but only for the 
weaker or subject. The idea of a true and a mistaken interest 
involves the idea of arrangements that recognise the needs of 
society sufficiently to work, and arrangements that do not. 

19. 10. ‘ What is for the interest of the stronger will not be 
a bit more just than what is not for his interest,’ because what 


BOOK J. 51 


he commands as his interest may not be to his real interest. 
This contradiction illustrates the nature of ‘ opinion’ or ‘seem- 
ing’ as described at the close of the fifth book. The argu- 
ment has been explained three times over, to make it clear. 
Plato feels he is introducing novelties. 


IQ. 12, 340 B—20. 25, 341 B. Sect. 12. 


Distinction taken. Idea of true interest not abandoned, but 
error not to be imputed to ruler qua ruler, being a defect of his 
statecraft, not an act of it. 


19. 20. ‘Was this definition,’ etc. The most consistent 340 G 

course would have been to withdraw the admission that error 
is possible. The course chosen is more subtle and lends 
itself better to the progress of the dialogue by leading up to 
the question what the ruler gua ruler does aim at. This selec- 
tion of an essential aspect is very much in the style of the 
Platonic Socrates. (See below, 159. 24, 454 A, on contrast of 
‘ Eristic’ and Dialectic.’) 


20. 36, 341 C—22, 36, 342 E. Sect. 13. 


A craft or kind of skill, as such, has a purpose, and directs 
itself solely to that purpose, ts therefore disinterested. Govern- 
ment may in this respect be treated as a craft, and ts therefore, 
qua government, disinterested. 


21. 1. ‘There is no need, I imagine,’ etc.: cf. 26. 25, 341 D 
346 B, ‘the fact of a man’s regaining his health while acting 
as pilot.’ His aim does not include any advantage private to 
himself, though he may accidentally gain such an advantage 
by being on board the ship. The purpose of a craft not being 
personal at all in its primary sense, and the person having 
other qualities besides his craftsmanship, he is not excepted 
from the benefit of any art, so far as, being on the ship, he 
falls within its purpose ; but this cannot be treated as a self- 
regarding aim. Note again the crafts selected as examples :-— 


52 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


medicine, seamanship, and the skill of the groom or horse- 
trainer. ; 

7 ff. ‘Has not each of these (persons) an interest of his 
own?’ etc. Jowett, ‘Every art has an interest,’ and ‘For 
which the az¢ has to provide.’ This is more like the mean- 
ing, but the pronoun ‘every’ is masculine according to the 
general reading, and therefore the word supplied cannot 
strictly be ‘art,’ which is feminine. Davies and Vaughan’s 
translation (if ‘persons’ = ‘ craftsmen’) cuts the string of the 
argument, which is that the craft does zof aim at the private 
interest of the craftsman. If we are to accept the reading, we 
must translate ‘each of these classes of subjects,’ viz., patients 
and sailors. Strictly the craft has no interest but its object— 
7.¢. a disinterested interest. If Jowett’s rendering is right, the 
process of explaining away the term ‘interest’ begins, 12, 
‘ Have the arts severally any other interest?’ and so on. 

342 A,B 31 ff. ‘So that every art should require another art to con- 
sider z¢s interests.’ The person who exercises the art may 
require the art of pay to look after Azs interest, 26. 21, 346 A. 
But this does not apply to the art. 

B33. ‘ Provisional’ in sense of an art which ‘ provides for’ 
or ‘looks after’ another. 

34. ‘Or will it. (look after) its own interest?’ Implying 
answer No. See note on 7 above. An art or craft exists 
neither for the sake of the craftsman, nor for its own sake 
(e.g. for its own completeness or elaborateness), but wholly and 
solely for its aim and purpose, embodied in the persons or 
things with which it has to deal. Plato is thinking primarily 
of the useful arts and not of the fine arts. So far as by 
analogy we can compare the view of this passage with the 
modern sentiment ‘art for art’s sake,’ the two seem to be 
diametrically opposed. Plato is insisting on the subordina- 
tion of art to its object, which in the case of a useful art is 
the good of some person or value of some thing, while in 
fine art it would be significance or expression. ‘Art for 
art’s sake,’ if it has a distinctive meaning, seems to imply 


BOOK I. 53 


a self-conscious brooding over the means of expression to 
the neglect of its content. 

22.4.5 Horsemanship,’ literally, ‘the art of horses.’ Above 342 C 
it meant horse-dealing and riding, here it rather seems to 
mean the skill of the groom or trainer. 

11. ‘An art governs,’ etc. Compare such phrases as ‘ being 
under such and such a physician,’ or ‘an artist’s mastery over 
his- material.’ Ultimately the comparison rests on the organ- 
ising power of intelligence. It is a brilliant application of 
the analogy to suggest, as here, that government has the 
disinterested devotedness of science. Of course it anticipates 
the contention that intelligence—the ‘ philosophers ’"—should 
be sovereign in states, Bk. v. 

13. ‘The interest of the weaker,’ strictly taken, would be 
a partial and factious interest as much as that of the stronger. 
But it seems clear from the last page that we must under- 
stand it of all persons or things dealt with gua weaker or 
subjects. The object of a craft is generic, not personal (see 
26. 18, 346 4), and so really this passage opposes the interest of 
the whole to that of the part, not merely part to part. 

32. See on 21. 1, and last note. Rulers in respect of their E 
private interests are subjects as well as rulers, and will regard 
their own interests gua equally qualified parts of the whole, 
but not as if they alone constituted the whole. 


22. 37) 343 A—25. 24, 345 B. Sect. 14. 


Restatement of egoistic or atomistic position. Appeal to case 
of tyranny, and to apparent weak-mindedness of good. 


23. 16. ‘The former is really the good of another.’ We 343 C 
are not surprised to be told that righteousness consists in 
seeking another’s good, even to our own loss, and if we took 
22. 13, ‘the interest of the weaker,’ literally, we should be 
forced to admit that Socrates says exactly the same thing as 
Thrasymachus, though with reference to other parties (see 
note, /c.). The difference between these two forms of 


54 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


‘altruism’ is, of course, that that of the stronger implies a 
free purpose, and therefore the agent’s own good in some 
sense or other, and therefore again, as noted above, the 
underlying conception of a common good. That of the 
weaker, being enforced, implies no identification of his own 
good with that of another, and therefore is bare altruism, 
devoid of the conception of a common good, and therefore 
admits of the assumption that what is gained by one is 
necessarily lost by another—a complete denial of the organic 
or co-operative nature of society, and a reduction of its basis 
to force and not Will. See Mr. Stewart’s note on Aristotle’s 
Ethics, v. 1, 17, especially the conclusion: ‘The hope of gain 
or the fear of superior strength, by itself, could not make 
men act ‘‘justly” ; they would cheat, or perish in the attempt 
to resist, rather than act “justly” if hope of gain or fear of 
superior force were their only motive. If men act “justly” 
it is because they really believe that “the most beautiful of 
things is true justice,” and are drawn, “in accordance with 
the divine element in them,” to act in harmony with the law 
of that beautiful system in which they live and have their 
being. Cf. Green’s Works, vol. ii. p. 427. (Principles of 
Political Obligation: G.: Will, not Force, is the basis of the 
State.) 

344 A 24. 7-9. The most consummate form of injustice, the 
tyranny, makes the wrongdoer most happy. Cf. below, 314. 
36, 578 c, the powerful rhetoric with which the ultimate 
reversal of this position is expressed. The air of dona fides 
in this argument of Thrasymachus gives a wonderful poignancy 
to his description of success-worship. 

22. ‘For when people abuse injustice,’ etc. Injustice is, 
in short, a sign of strength and justice of weakness. Plato 
seems to desire the completest analysis of common feeling. 
We all know the prejudice against obedience to authority, 
sometimes, as among schoolboys, against all duty imposed by 
authority, which is apt to arise among persons associated 
under control which does not, or does not seem to, issue from 


BOOK I. | 55 


themselves. In such a case, and such cases run throughout 
_ life, defiance, aggression, evasion seem ‘fine,’ submission, 
moderation, candour, seem contemptible. The feeling can 
never be uprooted until it is seen that justice is not something 
imposed from without, but is, in substance, the general will. 
Man will always resist what he feels to be alien to him. And 
so, generally, if goodness is allowed to be represented as 
merely negative, as obedience or resignation, it will always 
seem to be weakness, while the rebellion or aggression which . 
embodies enterprise and positive initiation will seem to be 
‘fine’ and strong. It is therefore a fundamental problem for 
Plato to explain that Goodness means organisation, co-opera- 
tion, and strength. 

25. 22. ‘Must I take the doctrine and thrust it into your 345 B 
mind?’ This humorous suggestion of doing by physical force 
what can only be done by process of reason strikes the very 
root of the difference between dogma and true speculation. 
Dogma arises from the attempt to pass ideas from hand to 
hand like material things. They are ‘thrust into the soul by 
force.’ But living ideas must be made to grow. 


26. 24, 345 B—28. 28, 347 E. Sect. 15. 


Reconciles disinterestedness of crafts with the fact that people 
are induced to practise them, by pointing out that making a 
living is a concomitant of arts and crafts, though not belonging 
to their essence, and that to pure public spirit the place of ruler 
is a burden rather than a gratification. 


25. 28. ‘Genuine physician,’ ‘genuine shepherd,’ literally, C 
‘the physician in very truth —7z.e. in the strictest sense, or 
acting in his capacity as physician. Not ‘ defined the mean- 
ing of,’ but ‘defined the physician to be, for our argument, 
the physician acting as such.’ 

38. ‘Sufficient provision is made, I suppose’ (see back 21. D 
34, note). This again, with a superficial resemblance, is really 
the very opposite of ‘art for art’s sake.’ An art or craft, 


56 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


according to Plato, has no interest, no claim of its own, but 
loses itself in its purpose, or need of expression, or usefulness. 

346A 26. 18. ‘Health,’ ‘safety at sea,’ purposes not restricted to 
particular persons. (See note on 21. 7, 341 D.) 

21. ‘The art of wages ’—z.e. the faculty or habit of making 
a living by our social services. It is a common tendency to 
consider this as an end to which the social service is a means, 
and which therefore moulds and prescribes that service. 
Plato insists on the independence of the social service, which 
in a true man and right society is not shaped and fettered by 
needs of money-making. The ‘living’ is the means to the 
‘craft,’ not vice versa. 

C 33. ‘The physician’s art a mercenary art’; better, ‘the 
physician’s art an art of wages.’ 

39. ‘Then whatever benefit accrues in common.’ Either 
the vices of money-making on the one hand, or thrift, 
energy, and industry on the other, are to a great extent 
qualities that belong to the man independently of his 
particular craft. 

D 27. 4. ‘The art of healing produces health and the art of 
wages pay,’ etc. Their separateness is the point. The art 
or craft is free in its nature, and ought to be the same when 
the artist has to live by it as when he is ‘independent.’ 2. 
idea of distinctive work at end of Book 1. 

E18. ‘An art ora government never provides that which is 
profitable for itself.’ Just because these activities are essentially 
disinterested, there must be material wages in some form to 
make them possible, and there must also be moral compulsion 
of some kind, whether higher or lower, to indicate to the 
individual where his work lies. The argument seems to us 
to disregard the sense of ‘ vocation,’ although (perhaps because) 
this is so deeply engrained in the structure of the Repuddic. 
(See, too, on 28, 18, 347 C.) 

347 C 28, 18-24. ‘If there were a city composed of none but 
good men,’—‘ every judicious man would choose to be the 
recipient of benefits rather than to have the trouble of 


BOOK L. 57 


conferring them.’ This strikes us as crude and selfish; we 
think ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive.’ But the 
real point lies deeper, see 242, 32, 520 D, which repeats and 
deepens the thought of this passage. True public spirit does 
not demand that I shall do the service, but that it shall be 
done in the best way ; and the only ground—such is Plato’s 
thought—which justifies my interfering, is that I can do it 
better than those who are attempting it. That all. shall have 
such resources in themselves as will prevent their being 
tempted to grasp at government from any motive but this, is 
the condition which he holds essential to a healthy political 
life. Thus the rigorous expression which seemed to ignore 
public ‘spirit really presupposes it in the purest form. The 
same feeling which assails us on a first reading of this passage 
often comes Over us on a nearer acquaintance with persons 
who render the most valuable public service. We find their 
capacities and resources to be so great and various that their 
work, which we think unique and enviable, is to them a 
pis aller so far as ambition or enjoyment is concerned. And 
for that very reason they do it with a certain detachment, 
purely as a duty, and with a willingness to resign as soon as 
it can be better done otherwise than by them. Plato, who 
can be as worldly wise as any man, has, I think, such facts as 
these in his mind. 


28. 28, 347 E—30. 18, 349A. Sect. 16. 


It has been shown that the purpose of government as such 
(its real interest so far as an art can have an interest at ail) is 
not coincident with the private interest of the persons forming the 
government. In that sense Justice, the rule of life in civil society, 
ts not dictated by the interest of the stronger. The search for a 
formal definition is now abandoned in order to take up the 
question, of. 24. 344, whether justice or injustice ts the better 
life. Thts ts so conducted as to pave the way for a recurrence 
to the analysis of society by more effective methods. The present 
section indicates a sense of defect in abstract comparisons, and 


58 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


restates the doctrine that injustice, in the sense of a narrow 
devotion to private pleasure and interest, is the better way 


of life. 


348A 29. 3. ‘It will be necessary to count and measure the 


D 


advantages.’ Setting out alternative lists of advantages was 
the well known method of fable or poetry ; see Book 11., and 
compare Prodicus’ Choice of Heracles (Xenophon’s Memora- 
bilia, ti. 1.) and the discussion between the Just and Unjust 
arguments in the Clouds of Aristophanes. Plato caricatures 
the Hedonistic calculus 328. 587 below. He sees that some 
more systematic method of analysis is necessary. 

29. 34. ‘The cutpurse tribe.’ This comparison of the 
criminal and the tyrant is borne in mind 310. 575 below. 
The despot is here taken as the extreme case of rebellion 
against social order. Strictly, the sovereign would on Thrasy- 
machus’ principle be neither just nor unjust. 


E 30.5. ‘According to generally received notions.’ See above, 


Sect. 17. 


14. 8, 336 D, and 31., admission that wisdom implies good- 
ness and vice versa. Plato evidently intends the reader to 
understand that there was a good store of accepted moral 
commonplaces, which facilitated discussion. Some of them 
are plainly common to Thrasymachus and the Socrates of 
Xenophon. 


30. 21, 349 B—32. 41, 350 C. 


Argument to prove that the just man ts wise and good. Wise 
= Good ts assumed, and the identification of Just and Wise 
effected by a common quality of the Just man and the man of 
skill or knowledge, of which the opposite is found in their 
respective opposites. This common quality is lawfulness or 
adherence to principle, contrasted with determination by private 
motives varying with purely private relations on every occasion 
of action. As he has argued before from the consistency (Sect. 7) 
and disinterestedness (Sect. 13) of rational practice or theory, so 
now, we might say, he argues from its objectivity. 


BOOK J. 59 


30. 23. ‘Do you think that a just man would wish to go 349 B 
beyond a just man in anything?’ ‘Go beyond’ here repre- 
sents ¢wo Greek words, meaning simply ‘have more than.’ 
The whole point turns on the relation between this meaning 
and the meaning of a single Greek verb containing the same 
elements but used in the sense of ‘overreaching’ or ‘ defraud- 
ing.’ The noun corresponding to it is the regular term for 
‘covetousness,’ and is the very antithesis to the Greek virtue 
of temperance and moderation. The object of playing on 
these words is to compare every departure from law or prin- 
ciple with a mora/ breach of order. 

28. ‘Go beyond’ here stands for the Greek ‘ overreach,’ but 
with a reference to the simple etymological meaning which 
the translators have reproduced. A just man will constantly 
be forced to set his principle in conflict with the unjust man’s 
want of principle. 

31. 5. ‘Struggle that he may himself obtain more than any C 
one else,’ literally, ‘most of all.’ This makes the point clear. 
The one man has a principle of action, through which he co- 
operates with all men of principle, and is only in conflict with 
those who have none; the other has no principle of adjust- 
ment or concerted action, but in every case limits his gain 
only by the opportunity, 

31. 7. ‘The just man goes not beyond his like,’ etc. This is D 
the quality which is to identify the just man and the wise man. 
The just man respects a law which all just men respect, the 
unjust man is in a war of all against all. 

11. ‘The unjust man is wise and good,’ a repetition of the 
thesis to be disproved, in order to point out the logical postu- 
late involved in either proof or disproof of it. 

16 ff ‘A man of a certain character.’ This phrase stands 
for one of the Greek demonstrative pronouns which play so 
great a part in the technical language of Aristotle. More 
literally, ‘of course one who is such will also be like those who 
are such, and one who is not will not be like,’ answered by 
‘Then each of them (the just and unjust man) is such as 


60 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


those whom he is like’; ze. ‘Each has the qualities of the 
class to which he belongs,’ answered by ‘ Each belongs to the 
class whose qualities he possesses.’ This is the principle of 
analogy, or inference from identity in important known quali- 
ties to that in unknown qualities. On 160. 454, the principle 
is limited by relevancy to the purfose of classification. In 
Plato we have the fascinating spectacle of abstract logic 
developing in organic unity with general philosophy, an axiom 
being assumed and illustrated here and there just as required. 
A striking example of this is the use of the Law of Contradic- 
tion in Book tv. 

19 ff.—to end of section. ‘Do you call one man musical, 
and another unmusical?’ Skill or science implies wisdom, and 
wisdom goodness; this is agreed, obviously on a Socratic 
basis. ‘Then the same contrasted qualities are found in the 
skilful man and his opposite as were found in the just 
man and his opposite, and are transferred, in virtue of 
the above admission, to the wise and good man with their 
opposites. Therefore through these qualities the just and 
unjust man respectively resemble in important points the 
wise and unwise and the good and bad, and therefore, by 
the postulate of 16, they ave wise and unwise, and good and 
bad respectively. 

E 30. ‘Do you think, my excellent friend, that a musician 
(literally) in tuning a lyre would wish to out do (single verb) 
another musician in tightening or loosening the strings, or 
aspire to have more (two words) than him?’ Both forms of 
expression are used here, in order to effect the transition of 
meaning from moral to musical error. In fact, the relation is 
not personal at all. The musician, in getting his strings in 
tune, is not affected by the degree in which another musician 
may succeed in the same object. But no doubt he aims at a 
result which an unmusical person, gva unmusical, cannot 
attain. Music and medicine are taken as equally good 
examples. There is no idea of a specially zesthetic compari- 
son, Scientific men or artists, it should be noted, may of 


BOOK I. 61 


course compete, but only in excellence, not in a direction 
that admits of unlimited discrepancy. 


‘When workmen strive to do better than well 
They do confound their skill in covetousness.’ 


This quotation, which Jowett gives, is extraordinarily apposite. 
The contrasted qualities, then, which justice and its opposite 
display equally with wisdom and goodness and their opposites, 
consist in the recognition of an objective law or principle 
prescribing a common line of action, and the non-recognition 
of any guide and limit but chance and opportunity. The corro- 
borative value of negative instances is plainly present to Plato’s 
mind in this discussion. 


32. 41, 350 C—33. 34, 351 A. Sect. 18. 


Transition to discussion on might and right. Escape from 
commonplaces to direct analysts. 


33. 1 ff. See note on Section 9 above. 350 D 

8. ‘Strong.’ (See 24. 25, 344 above.) 

13. ‘Declaiming.’ Cf. 24. 29, 344 D above, and Protagoras E 
329 A, where Plato compares the rhetorician’s harangue to the 
ringing of a brazen bowl, that does not stop till some one puts 
his hand on it. He likes every sentence to be criticised, as in 
conversation, before going further, and objects to the set 
speech because it makes this impossible. 

32. ‘It may easily be shown, I imagine, that justice is 351 A 
likewise stronger ’—‘ But I do not wish to settle the question 
in that absolute way,’ literally, ‘so simply,’ ze. deductively, or 
a@ priori, as people still insist on calling it. Plato desires to 
analyse another aspect of justice. 


33- 35, 35! A—35- 35> 352 D. Sect. 19. 


Pursues an aspect of the argument of Sect.17. The Just and 
Unjust man stand in different relations to those like themselves. 
Injustice, being the opposite of lawfulness, means dissolution and 


62 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


disorganisation in any community, and even in the individual 
person. Right and Might are causally connected. Bad states 
only hold together by the justice in them. Plato does not push 
this last conclusion in the case of the soul. Lf he had done so, 
it would greatly affect the argument for the eternity of the soul 
in Book X. 


33. 39. ‘And this will be more frequently done by the best 
city, that is, the one that is most completely unjust.’ 
Obviously an allusion, with grim humour, to the Athenian 
empire of the Periclean age. Thrasymachus’ complete 
injustice was realised in tyranny, and Athens had been called 
a ‘tyrant city.” Thucydides, i. 122. 

351 C 34. 11. ‘Whether—a band of thieves—could succeed in 
any enterprise if they were to deal unjustly with one another.’ 
‘Honour among thieves’; the effect of the social virtues on 
the survival of groups of persons is recognised in recent 
evolutionist theory. ‘This page of course anticipates the later 
argument of the dialogue, see especially 121. 423. 

E 35. ‘And supposing—that injustice has taken up its 
residence in a single individual.’ Compare the development 
of this idea I50. 444. 

352A 35. 7. ‘An enemy to himself and to the just’ assigns the 
full reason for the different relation of just and unjust to their 
likes, assumed above, 31. 7, 349 D. ‘The relation to his 
like—the unjust man—is here taken as covering his relation 
to himself. Cf. the night soliloquy of Richard 111. 

352 C 30. ‘And that injustice partly disabled them,’ etc. I think 
the translation emphasises the wrong aspect. Surely it is 
more as Jowett takes it, ‘and in pursuing their unjust 
purposes they were after all only half corrupted by wickedness, 
since they had been,’ etc. Comparing the reference to the 
‘best city,’ 33. 39, 351, we may see in this a half humorous, 
half pathetic allusion to the great days of Athens. 

D 32. ‘Also thoroughly unable to act.’ The rhetoric here is 
powerful though simple, and has something of the feeling 


BOOK J. 63 


which animates the ninth book: ‘the absolutely wicked are 
absolutely weak.’ Contrast the argument in Book x. 357. 
7, 610 E. 


35- 35) 352 D—end of Book 1. Sect. 20 


Argument from conception of final cause, or distinctive function, 
purpose, or ‘work,’ of different objects. The distinctively human 
‘work’ ts to live in the fullest sense—i.e. to exercise will and 
intelligence. An adequate discharge of its ‘work’ is dependent, 
in every object, on a positive quality—its excellence. The 
‘excellence’ by which man adequately discharges his ‘function’ 
is identified with justice or righteousness, so that righteousness 
becomes the essential condition of ‘living well” ‘ Living well’ is 
identified with happiness, and thus serves as a middle term by 
which righteousness also is identified with human happiness. 
This argument marks an era in philosophy. It is a first 
reading of the central facts of society, morality, and nature. In 
social analysts it founds the idea of organisation and division of 
labour. Organisation=the adaptation of parts in a whole, as 
‘Organa’ (instruments), to their ‘Ergon’—the word here 
introduced for work or function. In morality it gives the 
conception of a distinctively human life which is the content or 
positive end of the distinctively human will. And for natural 
knowledge it suggests the connection between function and 
definition, and consequently between purpose and reality, 
which ts profoundly developed in the sixth and seventh books. 
These conceptions become corner-stones of Aristotle's philosophy, 
and still, when seen in their connection, form the very core of 
the best thought. 

I do not say that they are suggested in this passage con- 
clustvely or for the first time. In a certain sense the life of 
Socrates was devoted to them. Nevertheless this passage, 
standing on the threshold of the concrete analysis of this complex 
of ideas in the Republic, ts unique in tts depth of meaning, and 
appears to have had a peculiar influence on Aristotle. 


64 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


D 35. 35- ‘Whether the just live a better life’: cf. 24. 42, 
344 E, ‘how each of us must conduct his life in order to 
lead the most profitable existence.’ The real question of this 
dialogue has come to the front by the mechanism of Thrasy- 
machus’ wholesale aggression upon goodness; ‘what is the 
best way of living?’ (See 40, ‘the manner in which a man 
ought to live.) 

‘Live a better life,’ literally, ‘live better.’ The phrase has 
much the same ambiguities in Greek as in English. (See note 
on 3, 18, 329 A above.) ‘Living well’ implies living up to 
your ideal, and ideals differ. But yet the phrase implies that 
there is an ideal for man as such. 

E 36. 1. ‘Ahorse’s function,’ ‘Ergon,’ literally ‘work.’ Plato’s 
use of this word is continuous with that of colloquial Greek, 
though in Aristotle it becomes a technical term. ‘ Use,’ 
‘business,’ ‘duty’ are equivalents that roughly express the 
everyday meaning of the word, in such phrases as ‘ What is 
the use of bow and arrows?’ (Why have you got them with 
you?) ‘This is my business.’ ‘Torch, do your duty, set 
the house on fire,’ Aristoph. Clouds. 

4. ‘The function of a horse or of anything else,’ etc. The 
word instrument is an insertion. A modern thinker will 
criticise this naive teleology, and especially will point out that 
to find the function of animals or other natural objects in 
their utility to man is a very serious assumption. He will ask, 
‘Do we mean that a Creator made them for this end?’ etc. 
But we must bear in mind that the sane and positive views of 
Greek philosophy deal with nothing of this kind. For it the 
question is, ‘Is there or is there not a central point of view 
from which we regard the individual thing, according to what 
it is good for?’ Even the disinterestedness of science is not 
so profound an objection to this idea as might be thought. 
See notes on Book v1. 

7. ‘I do not understand.’ Probably Plato means to 
indicate that the idea of final cause was comparatively new. 

g and 11. ‘Eyes’ and ‘Ears.’ Instances of a different 


BOOK I. 65 


class from the horse. We admit that the ascription of 
functions is ‘ objective’ in these cases. Our term ‘Organs’= 
‘Instruments’; but its original ‘organa’ is applied by Plato 
and Aristotle rather to the hands or limbs than to the eye or 
ear, and does not occur in the Greek of this passage. 

18. ‘Chisel,’ etc. Tools made for a certain purpose ; here 353 A 
again we admit the function to be objective, though only as a 
result of man’s intelligent design. These instances, there- 
fore, though quite valid as suggestions, are not independent 
examples of real function. The argument is really leading up 
to the strongest case by fainter anticipations of it. 

28. ‘Whether the function of a thing’: definition of function 
repeated. The function need not fall outside the instrument, 
so that the real question is whether things have central 
distinctive characters at all. 

35- ‘Proper virtue’; better, ‘excellence,’ and so through- B 
out for ‘virtue.’ The word is very general and means good- 
ness of any kind recognised by a customary purpose or 
standard. Of course the quality which forms the excellence 
is only distinguishable from the function where the function 
implies a result outside the agent. On an ultimate analysis, 
the quality and the function would always coincide or the 
quality would be that which links together the intermittent 
activities of the function. 

37. 3. ‘Discharge their own functions well.’ ‘Well’ rather 
complicates the matter, because it implies a further standard 
outside the function. But the function or final cause is itself 
the ultimate standard. (See Aristotle, quoted below.) 
‘Thoroughly’ or ‘completely’ is what the thought requires. 
He is leading up to the phrase ‘living well,’ which he has 
borrowed from colloquial speech, and his point is just that 
full or adequate living includes what common sense means 
by ‘living well.’ 

17. ‘Has the soul any function?’ I subjoin the parallel D 
argument from Aristotle’s JVicomachean Ethics, plainly sug- 
gested by this passage. Observe that Aristotle is at more 

E 


66 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


pains to explain, what Plato merely assumes as obvious, the 
distinctive character of human life as such. L¢hics WV., i. 7, 
9-14 (Peters). 

9 ‘But perhaps the reader thinks that though no one will 
dispute the statement that happiness is the best thing in the 
world, yet a still more precise definition of it is needed. 

10 ‘This will best be gained, I think, by asking, What is the 
function of man? For as the goodness and the excellence of 
a piper or a sculptor, or the practiser of any art, and generally 
of those who have any function or business to do, lies in that 
function, so man’s good would seem to lie in his function, if 
he has one. 

11 ‘But can we suppose that, while a carpenter and a cobbler 
has a function and a business of his own, man has no business 
and no function assigned him by nature? Nay, surely as his 
several members, eye and hand and foot, plainly have each 
his own function, so we must suppose that man has also some 
function over and above all these. 

12. * What then is it? 

‘ Life evidently he has in common even with the plants, but 
we want that which is peculiar to him. We must exclude, 
therefore, the life of mere nutrition and growth. Next to 
this comes the life of sense; but this, too, he plainly shares 
with horses and cattle and all kinds of animals. , 

13 ‘There remains then the life whereby he acts—the life of 
his rational nature, with its two sides or divisions, one rational, 
as obeying reason, the other rational, as having and exercising 
reason. 

‘But as this expression is ambiguous, we must be under- 
stood to mean thereby the life that consists in the exercise of 
the faculties ; for this seems to be more properly entitled to 
the name. 

‘The function of man, then, is the exercise of his vital 
faculties (or soul) on one side in obedience to reason, and 
on the other side with reason. 


* But what is called the function of a man of any profession, 


BOOK J. 67 


and the function of a man who is good in that profession, are 
generically the same, ¢.g. of a harper and of a good harper ; 
and this holds in all cases without exception, only that in the 
case of the latter his superior excellence at his work is added ; 
for we say a harper’s function is to harp, and a good harper’s 
to harp well. 

‘ Man’s function then being, as we say, a kind of life—that 
is to say, exercise of his faculties and action of various kinds 
with reason—the good man’s function is to do this well and 
beautifully. 

‘But the function of anything is done well when it is done 
in accordance with the proper excellence of that thing. 
Putting all this together, then, we find that the good of man 
is exercise of his faculties in accordance with excellence or 
virtue, or, if there be more than one, in accordance with the 
best and most complete virtue.’ 

31. ‘Its own peculiar virtue’; better, ‘its characteristic E 
excellence.’ 

38. ‘Did we not grant?’ See 12. 19, 335 ©, or, in argu- 
ment with Thrasymachus, the same thing expressed through 
adjectives, 32. 40,350 c. The point, of course, is not in the 
previous admission, but in the suggested identification of 
righteousness with full and positive human excellence—always 
a striking and fascinating idea, as an escape from the negative 
and empty notions of morality which tradition tends to stereo- 
type, as the beginning of this dialogue indicated. 

42. ‘The just soul—will live well.’ The notion of morality is 
developed by this argument into the complete and adequate 
discharge of the characteristically human functions (‘living 
well’ according to definition of soul’s function, 19, above). 

38. 1. ‘Living well,’ by a recurrence to colloquial usage, 
makes the transition to happiness. (See note on 3. 18, 329 A 
above.) ‘Transitions of this kind in Plato are often said to be 
quibbles. The question is, whether, in the idea that forms 
the bridge (as here in ‘living well’), there is or is not a real 
identity with the two ideas which are brought into relation by 


68 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


its means. The mere two-sidedness of the central idea, so 
far from being a mark of equivocation, is absolutely essential 
in all reasoning. But if its two sides do not hold together in 
a common core of meaning, then the back of the argument is 
broken, and its appearance of unity is a quibble. This, and 
not the question of superficial form, is the standard we should 
have in mind when estimating Plato’s discussions. Here we 
have it pointed out that a truly human satisfaction, such as 
best contents a normal human being, is on the one side a fair 
equivalent for happiness, and on the other side may reason- 
ably be analysed into the complete discharge of those 
activities which on a sane view constitute the characteristic of 
human nature. The ultimate appeal is to our view of life as 
a whole. 

C 29. ‘While I do not know what justice is.’ What can we 
know of a thing except its predicates? Socrates means, no 
doubt, that he has not analysed the nature of the whole 
system in which justice or righteousness is found, either 
inwardly in the soul of man, or outwardly in society. It 
will be observed, however, that in insisting on distinctive 
Junction he implies both of these analyses, in order to deter- 
mine what is characteristically human in the soul, and how 
man’s function organises itself in society. Note that the 
admission of failure here, and 13. 336 A above, recalls the 
Socratic or tentative dialogues. Contrast the definite claim to 
success, 149. 36, 444 A, after morality has been analysed in 
society, and in the individual as interpreted through society. 








BOOK II 


Part I. continued, down to 52. 6, 367 A. 
Beginning of Book 11.—4I. 2, 358 E. Sect. 21. 


Transition to restatement of problem, whether Justice or In- 
justice ts preferable, in the light of the distinction between means 
and end, thus laying bare the root of the controversy in Book I. 


39. 6. ‘Really to convince us—or only to seem’: cf. below, 357 B 
201. 29, 487 B; the recognition that silencing an antagonist is 
_ not the same as doing substantial justice to a subject, serves to 
introduce a new distinction or a set of facts not yet accounted 
for. 

40. 2. ‘I should say, in the highest.’ Plato adheres on the D 
whole to the term justice or righteousness as the appellation of 
the best life, although he constantly suggests, as at the end of 
Book 1. and in the beginning of Book Iv., the idea of happi- 
ness as practically equivalent to it, and the whole course of 
his argument supports this equivalence. But, as he here 
retains the narrower and more purely moralistic term, it is 
natural that he should adopt a popular way of speaking by 
describing goodness as valuable gua means and not solely gua 
end. Aristotle, using the term happiness, does not admit this 
‘distinction, and his doctrine really expresses the gist of Plato’s 
ethical position much more profoundly than the present 
passage, which occurs, we must remember, defore the main 
argument of the Repudlic is developed. I subjoin a quotation 


from the Z¢hics, with Mr. Stewart’s excellent note upon it. 
69 


70 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


Aristotle’s Zthics, i. 7, 6-8 (Peters):—‘The final good is 
thought to be self-sufficing (or all-sufficing). In applying this 
term we do not regard a man as an individual leading a 
solitary life, but we also take account of parents, children, wife, 
and, in short, friends and fellow-citizens generally, since man 
is naturally a social being. Some limit must indeed be set to 
this ; for if you go on to parents and descendants and friends 
of friends you will never come to a stop. But this we will 
consider further on: for the present we will take the self- 
sufficing to mean what by itself makes life desirable and 
in want of nothing. Now happiness is believed to answer 
this description. ; 

‘ And further, happiness is believed to be the most desirable 
thing in the world, and that not merely as one among other 
good things: if it were merely one among other good things 
(so that other things could be added to it), it is plain that the 
addition of the least of other goods must make it more desir- 
able ; for the addition becomes a surplus of good, and of two 
goods the greater is always more desirable. Thus it seems 
that happiness is something final and self-sufficing, and is the 
end of all that man does.’ 

On which Mr. Stewart comments: 

‘The doctrine of the present section may be explained as 
follows :—Happiness is Life, and, as such, cannot be classed 
among “the good things” of life. It is the Form and 
organisation of man’s powers and opportunities. To suppose 
it possible to add one of these powers or opportunities to the 
already perfect Form, would be to suppose that the power or 
opportunity in question has not been already organised in the 
Form, and that consequently the Form is imperfect. The 
absurdity of such a supposition would equal that of representing 
a perfectly healthy man as made more healthy by the addition 
of a heart. As the various organs of the body have no 
function, and therefore no real existence, apart from the 
living body, so particular good things (virtue, health, beauty, 
wealth), have no existence, except as elements of the noble life. 


BOOK TI. 71 


‘In this section Aristotle virtually maintains all that Plato 
contended for in his doctrine of the Idea of the Good. As 
the Idea of the Good is the unity of good things, and that by 
reason of which they are good—in other words, as it is that 
definite system or order, by belonging to, and subserving 
which, particular things are said to be good, rather than 
pleasant, or otherwise attractive to mere sense; so Happiness © 
is that orderly and beautiful life in relation to which, and 
only to which, man’s powers and opportunities have any 
significance. ‘The man who has no rational conception of the 
greatness and beauty of Life, as a system, will cherish, instead 
of that conception, an image borrowed from sense; he will 
identify Happiness or Life with pleasure or honour. Having 
made this identification, he will easily persuade himself that 
** Happiness” may be enhanced by the addition of particular 
good things; for As ‘‘ Happiness” is itself only a particular 
good thing. But Happiness, as the rational man conceives it, 
is not a ¢iimg—not something that a man receives passively 
and possesses, but the wse which he makes of the things he 
has received and possesses. So, a tree is not the inorganic 
elements into which it may be analysed, but the use, as it 
were, to which the organising principle puts these elements. 
Reason in man, like Nature in the plant and animal worlds, 
recognises and imposes definite limits. Particular details are 
valued by it, not for themselves (if they were, no limit could 
be assigned to their desirable multiplication) but for the sake 
of the beautiful Life which transforms them. But the man 
who lives by ‘sense and imagination’ is immersed in these 
details. Life or “‘ Happiness” is’ for him a mere succession 
of particular experiences—an indefinite sum of good things 
which never satisfies him. To the external view he may seem 
to be happy, because the material conditions or elements of 
Happiness are separately present ; but the transforming spirit 
is inwardly wanting— 

‘* Er hat die Theile in seiner Hand, 
Fehlt leider nur das geistige Band.” 


72 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


He is receptive of isolated impressions; he lives by 
mere affections ; he does not assert a personality in active 
function.’ 

The good life, thus largely conceived, whether it is called 
Morality or Happiness, cannot be treated even in part as a 
means to an end. And ultimately this is the view of Plato 
no less than of Aristotle. Cf. 53. 39, 269 B, ‘We are not 
individually independent’; better, ‘self-sufficing’ (the word 
being the same with that so translated in the above quotation 
from Aristotle), and note. 


358 B 40. 19. ‘Taken simply by themselves, when residing in the 


Sect. 22. 


E 4I. 5. ‘To commit injustice is naturally a good thing. 


soul,’ It cannot be said that this problem was untouched in 
Book 1. (See especially Sections 19 and 20.) But a more 
developed analysis was necessary in order to establish what 
was there implied. 


AI. 3, 358 E—AI. 26, 359 B. 


A theory of social compact. The point ts to present justice as 
artificial, i.e. as arising through a combination of injustices, 
which are both originally and permanently the real operative 
Jorces in society. (See Sect. 14 above, and notes.) The forms 
taken by somewhat analogous doctrines in Hobbes, Spinoza, 
Locke, and Rousseau are stated and criticised in T. H. Green’s 
Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation, Works, L7/. 


335: 


? 


‘Naturally,’ iz the sense in which ‘naturally’ can be opposed to 
‘im society, there is neither’ injustice nor the idea of good. 
Plato and Aristotle on the other hand treat society as ‘ natural.’ 
The individual, wth his social ideas of right and wrong, is 
here imagined to exist in an unsocial condition, and yet to 
identify the violence which he uses in self-assertion at once 
with an effort towards his own good and with rebellion 
against a social good. Really in such a world of ‘nature’ 
there would be no right, but mere force. But ‘injustice’ 


BOOK II. 73 


must be thus antedated, in order that ‘justice’ may appear to 
arise from it. Observe that the natural good which later 
theorists call a natural right is for Glaucon a natural wrong 
(in the sense of a wrong-doing). 

4I. 10. ‘To make compact of mutual abstinence from 359A 
injustice. Hence arose legislation and contracts.’ This is 
then a compact to keep compacts! Of course compacts rest 
on the social will, not the social will on compacts. After the 
social recognition of right has grown up in society, it may be 
transferred or modified by a consent, the value of which rests 
on the character of the consenting parties. Therefore the 
contract theory may fairly represent the reciprocity of obliga- 
tion in a developed society. But social necessity will always 
be likely to override even the terms of express consents. In 
the United States the right of the South to secede was argued 
on a contract basis, both fro and con. 

19. ‘Is regarded with satisfaction’; better, ‘is tolerated.’ B 
In agreeing to social order the individual chooses the less of 
two evils ; unchecked self-assertion would be the only positive 
good. Quite apart from the fallacy involved in antedating 
the social conception of right or good, there is here a very 
important assumption, viz., that unchecked or aggressive self- 
assertion is more and greater than organised assertion of the 
self in and through society. Cf. 24. 22,344 cabove. Against 
this assumption Plato’s whole theory of society from 53. 39, 
369 B is a protest. So long as any such assumption stands, 
morality will always be treated as a weak and negative thing. 
It is in other words the assumption that the one’s gain is 
necessarily the other’s loss. 

24. After ‘should abstain from injustice,’ the words ‘for he 
would be mad to do so’ have been omitted by an oversight. 

‘Such is the current account.’ Aristotle mentions the sophist 
Lykophron in connection with the idea that law is a conven- 
tion and mutual security for rights. Po/itics, ili. 9. It is 
instructive to compare this view with Aristotle’s account of 
language as ‘significant according to convention.’ 


74 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


Sect. 23. I. 27, 359 B—43. 14, 360 D. 


Tf the outer conscience were taken away, the inner would go 
C too, which, it is urged, proves that the inner ts not real. 


AI. 33. ‘That covetous desire,’ the same word as the 
‘covetousness’ or ‘going beyond’ on which the argument 
of Sect. 17 turns. 

35. ‘As a good’ antedated, or, rather, falsely transferred. 
There is no idea of a good wholly apart from a common 
good, and for a creature capable of the idea of a common 
good the self is from the first larger than the separate animal 
organism. 

D 40. ‘The ancestor of Gyges,’ or, with another reading, ‘ by 
Gyges the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian.’ Compare the 
story of Gyges, Herodotus, i. 8 ff. 

E 42. 15. ‘The hoop,’ rather the collet—the broad part that 
holds the stone. 

360 B 30, ‘If there were two such rings.’ The speeches of Glaucon 
and Adeimantus strongly emphasise the character of violent 
hypothesis that belongs to atomistic theories of society. It 
must be borne in mind that a supposition can only give a 
conclusion where the supposed modification of reality leaves 
the reality standing, because it is on the nature of the reality 
that the conclusion is based. Here, as in the hypothesis 
of the state of nature, and in the challenge which closes the 
speech of Adeimantus, we are called upon to imagine that 
selfishness works in all external consequences as well as 
unselfishness, or better, and to explain, on that assumption, 
why unselfishness is preferable. The argument of the Repudiic, 
though it takes up the challenge to show the purely inward 
value of morality, can only treat the reliance on this as an 
extreme case, and really involves denying the legitimacy of 
the sha set of hypotheses implied in the challenge. 

D 43. 8. ‘For if any one having this licence.’ Bad self repre- 
iented a as positive, good self as s merely negative (See note 
on 24. 22 above.) 


BOOK I. 75 


43. 15, 360 E—45. 21, 362 C. 
Hypothesis of reversal of outer conscience or moral recognition 


Jurther worked out, and conclusion drawn that injustice is the 
real law of the world. 


Sect. 24. 


44. 6. ‘We must take away the seeming.’ By the violent 361 B 


hypothesis proposed, the moral recognition of justice is 
actually turned against it. It is like asking whether we should 
do good actions if they had preponderantly bad consequences. 


32. ‘The just man will be scourged,’ etc. This, we must 362 A 


bear in mind, is because of his reputation for injustice, so 
that a general recognition of some kind of justice is actually 
presupposed. The prediction applies strictly, therefore, to 
the ‘hero’ who is the martyr of a new principle, but not to 
the ordinary good man who lives within normal morality. 

39. ‘A course allied to reality,’ the true point of inquiry 
throughout the whole dialogue. ‘ Reality’ here is the word 
translated ‘truth’ (its ordinary meaning) on 230. 508-9 below. 
It is there used for the quality in virtue of which objects of 
knowledge are capable of being known, ‘reasonableness,’ 
‘intelligibility,’ or in modern phrase, ‘ uniformity of nature.’ 

45. 15. ‘Means of paying court to the gods.’ Cf. below, 
47-8. 364 B and E, and 82. 390 E. The ideas of primitive 
superstition which linger on in civilised theology, here repre- 
sented by the poets, are made to criticise themselves by their 
adaptation to the last conclusions of a cynical pessimism, and 
are put aside as improper for the education of a gentleman. 


45. 22, 362 D—52. 6, 367 E. 

The champions of morality, parents, poets, priests, theologians, 
all really agree with the champions of tmmorality that the outer con- 
science, the recognition and rewards of morality, are the real end of 
action, and one separable from morality itself. Appeal to argue the 
question on the merits of morality itself as a principle in the mind. 


Cc 


Sect. 25. 


45. 39. ‘When parents and others set forth the duty of E 


being just,’ they talk of a moral government of the world by 


76 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


rewards and punishments. The outer conscience, or recogni- 
tion, has, as we argued above, a real connection with morality ; 
it is here, as always, the failure to grasp life as a whole that 
does the mischief; the part, insisted on by itself, becomes 
false. 

363A 46. 9. ‘As the excellent Hesiod tells us,’ the poets speak the 
mind of the vulgar. It is really the doctrinal interpretation 
of poetical language that is in fault, and Plato throughout 
makes this popular habit criticise itself and reduce itself to an 
absurdity. 

364A 47. 6. ‘All as with one mouth proclaim,’ etc. We are sur- 
prised that Plato associates with vulgar fallacies the poets’ 
references both to the strenuousness of good life, and to the 
trials imposed upon the good (below, 20). He seems to be 
pointing out that sentimentalism oscillates between comple- 
mentary errors, first indicating the rewards of goodness as its 
essence, and then bewailing and exaggerating the hardships 
which it meets with, in contrast with the brilliant success of 
wickedness. 

B 22. ‘And there are quacks and soothsayers.’ Even the 
great figures of Pythagoras and Epimenides have some traits 
of the medicine-man. (See Burnet’s Zarly Greek Philosophy, 
p. 83 ff.) Plato seems to have lived at the right moment to 
seize the connection between the magic of savagery and the 
sacerdotalism of civilised society. 

C 33. ‘They produce the evidence of poets.’ All these 
references bear on Plato’s attitude to imaginative art. Strictly 
speaking it, is the use of the passages which is here criticised 
by implication rather than the passages themselves. 

E 48. 11. ‘And they produce a host of books,’ etc. Compare 
the purification of Athens by Epimenides after the suppression 
of Kylon’s attempt to make himself tyrant. See Burnet, Zc., 
and note the analogy of the passage with the attitude of the 
Hebrew prophets towards ritual. 

365A 24. ‘What can we suppose is the effect produced on the 
minds of all those young men of good natural parts.’ Observe 


BOOK I]. 77 


that the danger here depicted arises not from explicit criticism, 
but from superstition or commonplace orthodoxy acting on a 
mind capable of criticism. The danger of the beginnings of 
criticism was also well known to Plato (see 265. 538). 

39. ‘As the wise inform me’; ‘the wise’ refers to some 365 C 
poet. The words immediately following are a quotation. 

49. 11. ‘Teachers of persuasion.’ Sophists are the in- D 
structors in the popular morality which poets support. 

16, ‘Well, but if they do not exist.’ The poets, again, are E 
the popular theologians, and the belief in gods is bound up 
with their conceptions of them. 

50. 31. ‘And the cause of all this’ is the fact that the 366 D 
popular advocates of morality, and other popular teachers who 
explain it away, are really on the same ground, in both cases 
explaining it as a means to an end. 

39. ‘But what each is in itself, in its own peculiar force.’ E 
The mind is a system in itself, and susceptible of a good and 
evil in its organisation, though this is not really separable 
from relation to the good and evil of the system which unites 
it with other minds. ‘Force’ stands for the Greek word 
which later acquired the technical meanings of ‘faculty’ and 
‘potentiality,’ the word ‘dunamis,’ from which our term 
‘dynamic’ is derived. See discussion on ‘faculties’ (same 
word) 192. 477. The root idea is that a thing, more especially 
an invisible activity, is known by its acts or effects, in relation 
to which it is a ower. 

51. 1. ‘And had you tried to persuade us of this from our 367 A 
childhood’ paves the way for the immense moral importance 
attached to education. 

16. ‘But show us what is that influence,’ etc.; more B 
literally, ‘show us what each of them does to him who has it, 
whereby,’ etc. 

24. ‘Your advice is to be unjust without being found out.’ C 
Regarding goodness as a means must ultimately bring us to 
this ; the end is always the true rule, and no means can claim 
a preference except for effectiveness. 


78 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


D 35. ‘Select for commendation this particular feature of 
justice, I mean the benefit which in itself it confers on its 
possessor.’ ‘The rewards and reputations leave to others.’ 
Note the extreme difficulty (technically an impossibility) of 
stating the nature of morality in answer to a question in the 
form ‘Why should I be moral?’ Its ‘rewards’ are not to be 
stated, but yet its ‘benefits’ are. The real meaning of the 
question can only be answered by an account of morality as 
a system embracing the whole of life, and also constituting 
the inmost order of the mind. 


SECOND OF THE NATURAL DIVISIONS 
OF THE REPUBLIC—s2. 368 a—184. 471 ¢. 


THE HELLENIC CITY 


52. 7, 368 A—53. 37; 369 B. 

Transition to account of commonwealth. Morality is predi- 
cated of a community as well as of an individual, and in the 
larger features of the community it may be easter to analyse its 
nature. Therefore it is proposed to watch the essential phases of 
the growth of a community into a moral whole, and subsequently 
to apply the results to the individual mind. 


Sect. 26. 


52. 31. ‘Because I am afraid that—breath and utterance 363 C 


are left in me.’ The translation hardly conveys the passionate 
rhetoric of the original. Perhaps ‘while the breath is in me 
and I have strength to utter a sound.’ Plato is inspired 
throughout with the feeling of a great moral and intellectual 
crisis—what we call an age of transition. 

36. ‘The real nature of justice and injustice,’ literally, ‘ what 
each of them does.’ We shall often have to notice this direct 
and simple language of Plato, which became the foundation of 
the technical terminology imposed by Aristotle upon the 
world. The term ‘real,’ meaning ‘of the nature of a ¢hing,’ 
is Latin in its origin, and does not correspond in spirit to 
Plato’s favourite usage of ‘is’ and ‘being,’ although we have 


perhaps no better equivalent in use. 
79 


80 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


368 D 53. 5- ‘In larger letters.’ This simile is at first sight an 
arbitrary motive for the transition. We are not accustomed 
to think that there is more morality in society than in the 
individual (cf. 19, ‘in larger proportions,’ and note). The 
meaning may be illustrated by 138. 16, 435 E below, which 
suggests that the qualities predominant in different types of 
mind manifest themselves on a large scale in the ranks and 
classes of the state, especially as these, to a Greek, in some 
degree rested on racial differences ; or, again, by 148-9. 443 
A-E, which sums up the argument by treating the order of 
society as the conspicuous outward symbol, and also the 
necessary complement, of the moral order in the individual 
mind. 

E 14. ‘Residing in,’ a paraphase of the translators. Literally, 
‘There is a justice of one man, and also of a whole city.’ It 
is plain that the convincingness of the transition rests on this 
assumption, which in modern times would not always be 
granted. In what sense there is ‘a justice of a whole city,’ 
z.e. how a city as such can be called just, according to Plato’s 
interpretation of the admission, we shall see below. 

19. ‘In the greater subject’; ‘subject’ is here the noun in- 
serted in English to agree with a Greek neuter adjective. (See 
note above on 5. 18, 330 E.) The aspect and emphasis of the 
sentence is greatly changed by such an insertion. Literally, 
‘There may be more justice in the greater.’ The facts of 
morality may be more completely presented in the social 
whole than in the isolated person. Compare Aristotle’s sug- 
gestion that there may be more wisdom and goodness in the 
community than in the individual, Politics, iii. 6. 

369A 22. ‘Looking for the counterpart of the greater,’ more 
literally, ‘ Examining the likeness of the greater in the form of 
the less.’ Note that the word ‘form’ here stands for the 
Greek word ‘idea,’ the usage of which, in Plato, has been so 
variously construed. No one would say that a simple text 
like this refers to the ‘ doctrine of ideas.’ Yet why not? The 
sharp separation between one and another use of the word 


BOOK I. 81 


‘form’ or ‘idea’ is wholly artificial. As to this method of 
inquiry, note that it is elaborately pursued in the negative 
discussion of Books vil. and 1x., as well as in the positive 
argument now entered upon. 

25. ‘Gradual formation,’ ‘the growth of’; these phrases 
represent the participle of the verb ‘to become’ or ‘come into 
being,’ from which the word ‘ Genesis’ is derived, and on the 
contrast of which with the verb ‘to be’ so much turns in 
Greek philosophy. 


53. 37, 369 B—58. 24, 372 C. Sect. 27. 


Logical, not historical, construction of the city. It arises with 
a view to exchange of services between individuals (who are not 
self-sufficing) by division of labour based on natural suitability 
Sor different functions. The state of innocence. 


53. 38. ‘ We are not individually independent,’ more literally, 369 B 
‘that each of us is not self-sufficing, but in want of many 
things.’ See Introduction, Sect. vi. . Plato directs his con- 
struction merely to the operative bond of society stated in the 
most abstract terms. He points out in the Zaws, Book UL., 
what Aristotle insists on in the Fo@itics, that, historically 
speaking, an immense evolution through other forms of com- 
munity precedes the. civilised commonwealth. 

‘Not self-sufficing.’ The word translated ‘self-sufficing’ 
becomes a technical term of great importance in Aristotle. 
It is the characteristic of every form of life which can be 
regarded as an end—of the city as contrasted with the 
individual or even the family (Politics i. 1), and of happiness 
as contrasted with anything desired only as a means to 
satisfaction. See quotation from Aristotle’s Z£¢hics, p. 70, 
above. The principle here laid down is fundamental in every 
organic philosophy or religion. Stoicism and Epicureanism, 
in as far as they aim at making the individual self-sufficing, 
were opposed to this principle, to which Christianity returned. 

‘In want of many things.’ Our wants, which only society 

F 


82 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


can supply, are of many kinds, both material, as explained 
in the present section, and spiritual, as indicated 241. 520 A, 
and 332. 591 Dand£. Inall of us the divine element needs 
reinforcement from without. Compare Herodotus, i. 32, 14, 
‘No single human being is self-sufficing. He has some things, 
but requires others.’ This passage occurs in the history of 
Solon and Croesus, which seems to anticipate in more ways 
than one the line taken by the philosophers. 

369C 54. 9. ‘Froma belief that he is consulting his own interest,’ 
literally, ‘thinking that it is better for himself.’ From the 
first in this construction the idea of co-operation as advan- 
tageous to all parties supersedes the idea of gain by others’ 
loss. 

D_ 17. ‘Sustenance to enable us to exist as living creatures,’ 
literally, ‘the provision of nourishment for the sake of exist- 
ence and life.’ This passage, in its relation to the later part 
of the book, is admirably summarised by Aristotle’s famous 
sentence (Politics, i. 1): ‘(The city) azzses for the sake of 
life, but zs for the sake of good life.’ Its root is in necessity, 
but its flower is goodness. 

33. ‘The single husbandman’ ; by calling him ‘ husband- 
man’ the question is answered in advance. If the second 
alternative were taken, there would be no distinction of 
occupations. The principle of division of labour is here 
based first on the observation of industrial convenience, but 
ultimately on a view, which the opening of this section antici- 
pated, of the relation of individuals to society. Society 
depends on the fact that individuals are such as to supply 
each other’s deficiencies. 

370A 55. 4. ‘No two persons are born exactly alike.’ In this 
sentence two future technical terms ‘ nature,’ and ‘function,’ 
are brought into relation, as the true basis of the principle of 
division of labour. ‘Are born’ stands for the verb corre- 
sponding to ‘nature,’ and ‘natural endowments’ simply for 
the word ‘nature.’ ‘Occupation’ is the same word which is 
translated ‘function ’=‘ work’ in the last argument of Book 1, 


BOOK I. 83 


and which became in Aristotle closely akin to the idea of 
‘final cause.’ The individual human being, then, so far from 
being naturally separate, is marked out by mature (as every 
other object has its function, close of Book 1.) for a particular 
Junction in society, which is held together by the unlikenesses 
of its members. Society is therefore zatura/, as Aristotle 
argues in /o/itics, i. 1, ‘man is by nature a social (literally, 
“‘ political”) animal,’ and it rests on the co-operation of dis- 
similar parts in a whole. ‘No city can arise out of similar 
members,’ Aristotle’s Politics, ii. 1. Plato seems to us to lean 
towards reducing the man to his function ; but of course his 
point at present is to establish the principle and not to modify 
it. According to the close of Book 1, we are entitled to 
regard the man’s particular social function as only an embodi- 
ment of the distinctive human function there ascribed to the 
soul. , 

11. ‘ Many trades,’ literally, ‘arts’; this term makes no dis- 370 B 
tinction between professions, industries, and fine arts. 

56. 5. ‘No need of imports.’ Plato dreads both naval 
supremacy and maritime trade as deteriorating influences on 
civic character. (See Zaws, Book Iv. zzz.) The Greek colonial 
towns were generally on the sea; Plato preferred a situation 
like that of Athens, with harbours, but at a greater distance 
from them. He admits that some foreign trade will be 
inevitable. 

25. ‘Merchants.’ Etymologically, ‘ Passengers,’ ze. people 371 A 
who actually go on shipboard and take charge of goods 
whether their own or others’. 

38. ‘A currency, for the sake of exchange.’ Aristotle B 
develops the theory of money by considering its use as a 
standard of value, and its fitness for that purpose.— 
LEthies, v. 5. 

57. 6. ‘Persons of excessive physical weakness.’ Satire, C 
partly founded on Greek prejudice, and partly anticipating the 
real difficulty about the middleman. Aristotle preserves the 
conjunction between coined money and retail trade in his 


84 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


discussion of the subject.—Po/itics, i. 3. The ‘infinity ’ which 
both Plato and Aristotle condemn as introduced into money- 
making by coined money, is more analogous to production for 
the speculative world market than to the modern ‘infinity of 
wants.’ There would perhaps be more room for the latter in 
Plato’s commonwealth than Mr. Bonar admits. See p. 13 of 
his Philosophy and Political Economy, and compare the con- 
cluding chapter of Pater’s Plato and Platonism. 


371E 57. 25. ‘Then hired labourers,’ etc., ze. the labourers 


Sect. 28. 


372 E 


belong to the civic body, but are felt to be inferior so far as 
their service is bodily rather than intellectual. Here, as in 
many passages, we are apt to receive a shock from Plato’s 
extreme plain speaking, although what he says would be true 
to-day of our own civilisation. Observe that whether by 
accident or design nothing is said as yet of slaves. Did he 
regard them as the result of war? 

31. ‘ Where, then—shall we find justice and injustice in it?’ 
‘J have no notion, except, perhaps, in the mutual relations,’ 
etc. Considering that no government nor guardian class yet 
exists, and this question and answer are not followed up, I 
incline to take them as a hint that morality is not distinct 
enough at this stage to repay examination. Cf. also 58. 37, 
372 E. The ‘city of pigs’ does not therefore seem to be 
Plato’s first ideal, as some have thought; it has rather the 
appearance of a satire on contemporary cynicism, perhaps that 
of Antisthenes, of which the point was to ‘simplify.’ (See 
Tourgenieff, 4 Virgin Soit.) 


58. 25, 372 D—OI. 16, 374 D. 


The disease of civilisation sets in, and with tt war, govern- 
ment, and education, and, we must suppose, definite or conscious 
morality. 


36 ff. ‘ How it is that justice and injustice take root in 
cities.’ The more self-conscious morality, in its contrast with 
immorality, is more easily analysed. The best city is one that 


BOOK I. 85 


has been purged (see below, 94. 33, 399 E), not one that has 
remained in the state of innocence. 

38. ‘The genuine, and, so to speak, healthy.’ Plato yields 
for the moment with a touch of humour to the charm of the 
state of innocence. 

59. 7. ‘ Painting,’ literally, ‘ Painting from life,’ ze. artist’s 373 A 
work. ‘Gold and ivory’ suggests the chryselephantine statues 
of Pheidias. 

14. ‘Hunters’ and ‘imitators.’ (1) The predatory classes, B 
including lawyers, political orators, and professional teachers 
(sophists) ; and (2) Those who practise the arts of deception, 
again including the sophist, together with the sculptor, painter, 
musician, poet, and here, apparently, those who have to do 
with women’s toilet. The juxtaposition of classes in the pre- 
sent passage suggests, by comparison with the divisions of the 
Sophist, probably a later dialogue, that something like this 
meaning was in Plato’s mind. 

30. ‘The need of medical men,’ anticipates the discussion D 
of valetudinarianism in Book 111. 

60. 8. ‘The origin of war.’ War comes in with the pres- E 
sure of population on territory, encouraged by an active 
civilisation. Why not emigration rather than war? The 
colonising period of Greece was one of brilliant activity, but 
had ended with the Persian and Carthaginian wars, and 
colonisation would no longer present itself as a general pos- 
sibility. Indeed, the ground being occupied, colonisation 
might mean war. 

14. ‘A whole army.’ It is strange at first sight that war, 374 A 
arising from luxury and self-aggrandisement, should be the 
point of departure for the introduction of the guardian class, 
and therefore of government and conscious morality. But } 
both the theory of natural selection and the lessons of history 
seem to show that it is war which makes a nation. Even 
Plato admitted that Marathon and Plataea made the Hellenes 
better, though he would not admit the same of Salamis and 
Artemisium.—Zaws, iv. 707. 


86 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


C 61.5. ‘And will it be enough for a man merely to handle 


Sect, 29. 


a shield?’ The demand for a professional soldiery is partly 
founded on the example of Sparta, and partly on the increas- 
ing use of mercenaries and the development of military tactics 
in Plato’s own day. The Spartans were always regarded as 
skilled warriors, and all others as unskilled in comparison. 
(See Herodotus’ account of Thermopylae.) The novelty of 
Plato’s view is in the combination of this skill with the best 
citizen spirit. 


61. 15, 374 D—O4. 7, 376 C. 


Selection of the guardians. Their disposition, the natural or 
animal basis of their character. 


375A 62, 1. ‘If it is not spirited.” The appeal to animal 


psychology throughout this section, in illustration of the endow- 
ments of man previous to education, is of a very modern 
type. Note that the Greek word translated ‘ brave,’ is literally 
‘manly,’ which makes a strange conjunction with ‘horse,’ 
‘dog,’ or other animal. On the meaning of ‘spirited,’ see 
Nettleship, e/lenica, p. 75. It means, literally, ‘of the 
nature of anger,’ and is construed by Plato as the element of 
pluck and self-assertion or righteous indignation, while capable 
of degenerating into pugnacity and brutality. The spirited 
element then comes first, being directly demanded by the 
military purpose with which the order is instituted. We have 
not yet the triple division of the soul. The psychology, like 
other elements of Plato’s philosophy, is developed from time 
to time in accordance with the needs of the general argument. 


E 63. 16. ‘His character should be philosophical as well as 


high-spirited.’ The ‘philosophical’ element of the’ mind is 
here introduced, merely, it must be observed, as supple- 
mentary to the ‘spirited’ element, in order to make this latter 
compatible with the safety of the community. The humorous 
identification of a temper which loves. knowledge with one in 
which liking follows familiarity, is one of the many forms in 
which Plato refers to a reasonableness attainable by feeling. 


BOOK I1. 87 


The development of the ‘philosophical’ element from this 
point onwards in the Republic should be noted by the reader. 


64. 8, 376 c—End of Book u. Sect. 30. 


The influence of tmaginative literature on character, especially 
in early education, so far as its substance ts concerned, and first, 
as conveying tdeas concerning the divine nature. 


64. 24. ‘ What, then, is the’education to be?’ ‘Gymnastic 376 E 
for the body and music for the mind.’ The portion of the 
dialogue which deals with this ‘ first’ education extends to 
the close of Book 11. The length and elaborateness of the 
discussion testify to the importance of the subject in Plato’s 
mind. And this subject is mainly identified with the forma- 
tion of character. The supplementation and criticism which 
the present treatment of education receives in Book vit. 264. 
536-7, where it becomes clear that the ‘three R’s’ and 
elementary science are not to be neglected, only throw into 
a stronger light Plato’s exclusive preoccupation with the pro- 
blem of moral nurture in these proposals for the reform of 
existing Hellenic education. ‘Music’ in the present case, 
whether or no the usage is normal, includes, beside the art of 
beautiful sound, the substance and form of imaginative litera- 
ture ; and the educational principles elicited from the discus- 
sion of ‘music’ are extended (96. 401) to all formative art 
and workmanship, and indeed to all the surroundings of life. 

‘For the body’ and ‘for the mind’: cf. 107. 410 c and 
note. 

30. ‘ Narratives,’ literally, ‘discourse’—the most general E 
term for anything read or told. Plato would have in mind, 
primarily, teaching and story-telling by word of mouth, as we 
also have in the case of young children. But the store of 
narratives and ideas would be largely drawn from literature, 
and would again pass into it, and so we find that his subject 
expands into a study of matter and form as exemplified by 
great poets. Even their works, however, would chiefly be 


88 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


thought of as something recited, sung, or acted on the stage, 
and not as books on a bookshelf. This helps to explain the 
immense importance which Plato attaches to mode and degree 
of impersonation, and the like. 

‘ Two kinds, the true and the false.’ By retaining the term 
‘ narratives,’ the translators have restricted the reference of 
this division. It plainly might apply to any kind of teaching, 
and not merely to history in contrast with fiction. There is 
little to show that the idea of teaching history existed at this 
time. 

377A 34. ‘In the false first.’ All communication of ideas 
must be adapted to the mind of the recipient, but the child 
cannot receive what counts as average truth for the adult 
intelligence. The paradox propounded is therefore of uni- 
versal application ; it is, indeed, a truism, and by the inter- 
locutor’s answer, ‘I do not understand,’ Plato draws our 
attention to the way in which familiarity blinds us to universal 
facts of the highest importance. 

65. 9. ‘The beginning is the most important,’ etc. Plato’s 
real or working conception of the soul cannot be appreciated 
apart from his views on education and actual life. Nothing 
is more characteristic of these views than his insistence on the 
thorough responsiveness of the soul to the moral, intellectual, 
and physical environment, including heredity. An abstract or 
negative spiritualism is fundamentally incompatible with the 
whole tendency of his thought. 

B_ 18. ‘The reverse of those, which, when they are grown 
to manhood,’ etc. Imperfect as the first ideas or feelings 
must be, it is possible to make them a germ of a growth in 
the right direction, and the educator must keep in view what 
he desires the adult to become. Cf. 74, 383 c. 

B_ a1. ‘Exercise superintendence,’ It is desirable for the 
modern reader to guard himself against being so much shocked 
by the crude and definite form of Plato’s proposals as to 
neglect their universal meaning. Here, for example, he 
should not simply exclaim, ‘ Moral censorship of imaginative 


BOOK Ii. ~ 89 


literature! intolerable!’ but should observe that Plato is 
enforcing a duty, now generally recognised, with regard to 
discrimination in the educational employment of literature. 
The novelty of the conception is marked, as before, by the 
perplexity of the interlocutor. On whom the duty may be 
incumbent is, comparatively speaking, a matter of detail. 
The larger question of his general attitude to art in the 
Republic will be touched upon below. 

66. 2. ‘Gives a bad representation.’ The verb here used 
=‘to make a likeness,’ or ‘to treat as likely,’ viz., to con- 
jecture ; and its derivative noun ‘guesswork,’ or ‘fancy,’ is 
the name of the fourth or lowest state of cognition at the 
close of Book v1. 

4. ‘Bear no resemblance.’ On 49. 365 E, we saw that 
the poets were the theologians of the time, and the only 
source of knowledge about divine things. How, then, can 
Plato criticise their conceptions? All fiction or mytho- 
logy, which is, it would seem, the appropriate vehicle (see 
reference above) for speaking of personal deity, although con- 
fessing itself to be mere/y approximative, yet claims some 
positive approximation to truth (65. 2, 377 A, 72. 32, 382 D). 
In respect, then, of the elements by which it is capable of 
approaching truth, even a confessed fiction may be criti- 
cised as true or false (cf. 75. 22, 386 c). It is false if its 
substance is self-contradictory (69. 31, 380 C), and if it conflicts 
with our fundamental moral ideas. Falsehood in this deeper 
sense makes a fiction ‘ugly,’ z.e. discordant and inexpressive. 
Plato, for whom the whole complex of religious tradition was 
from the outset fiction or mythology, had no occasion to 
apply our favourite test of historical criticism, even if the 
conception of it had existed in his time. And we are apt to 
be startled at his proceeding so entirely on general or ethical 
grounds. But the difference between truth of ideas and 
truth of facts is not ultimate. Our conception of his- 
tory depends upon our general ideas of what is important, 
and our general ideas embody what we take to be the 


78 E 


90 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


leading facts of life. (See Nettleship in Aedlenica, 
Pp. 93:) : 

378A 24. ‘And must not be repeated in our city.’ The 
question is suddenly extended beyond early education, in an 
outburst of feeling. The Greek is, I think, more abrupt and 
vehement than either Jowett or Davies and Vaughan— 
‘offensive stories,’ ‘such, indeed, as absolutely must not be 
told, Adeimantus, in our city.’ 

C 34. ‘What is indeed untrue,’ ze. an untrue fiction. (See 
note on 66. 4 above.) 

67. 3. ‘No member of a state was ever guilty’: cf. 219. 
4, 500, ‘every one must imitate that with which he reverently 
associates.’ If the spirit of citizenship is to be instilled into 
the young, it must be shown to them in those personages 
whom they are brought up to reverence. 

D 67. 12. ‘ For achild cannot discriminate between what is 
allegory and what is not.’ An ironical mode of putting aside 
an artificial system of interpretation. See Phaedrus, 229-30, 
for a parody of such rationalism. Socrates there says he 
might explain the story of Boreas carrying off the nymph 
Oreithyia by suggesting that she had been blown over a cliff 
by the north wind; only he has not leisure to invent explana- 
tions like this—so many would be needed. Plato does not 
use the Greek word from which ‘allegory’ is derived, but 
another which=‘ sub-meaning.’ 

379A 31. ‘Theology.’ The Greek word is the same. I believe 
that this is the earliest passage in which this fateful term occurs. 

B 42. ‘That which is not hurtful, hurt.’ Compare the argu- 
ment of 12. 335. 

C 68. 16. ‘On the contrary, he is the author.’ This idea is 
in some degree anticipated in the self-defence of Zeus, Odyssey, 
i, 32; Plato’s inference seems extraordinarily bold to. our 
modern thought, but a Greek had not perhaps the fixed ideas 
which give it this effect for our minds. On the undertone 


of melancholy in Greek life, see Butcher’s Some aspects of the 
Greek genius. 


BOOK II. 91 


69. 6. ‘He plants among its members guilt and sin.’ 380 
Plato seems anxious to preserve human responsibility as well 
as to remove the authorship of evil from God. The doctrine 
of family destiny in the tragic poets seems to have passed 
from an idea of external or irrational doom to some such 
conception as that character is fate. (See Butcher, of. cit.) 
The doctrine of heredity plays a part in modern literature 
analogous to that of the divine curse in ancient tragedy. 
It is hard to see why we should complain of the bad which 
we inherit without congratulating ourselves on the good. We 
seem to accept the latter as our right. 

29. ‘Injurious to us and self-contradictory’ (see the argu- C 
ment of 67 ff.). ‘Nothing that is good is hurtful,’ etc. 

35. ‘God is not the author of all things, but only of such 
as are good.’ The first of Plato’s two canons of theology. 
We are rather accustomed to the contention ‘God is the 
author of all things, and therefore all things are good,’ and 
there is a trace of this argument in the doctrine of profitable 
punishment just above. (See, too, 360. below, 613.) What 
Plato probably desires to contradict is the savage idea of God 
entertaining malice or anger like a man, which could not but 
have the worst educational effects. 

70. 1. ‘Actually assuming such forms,’ etc. The second p 
canon, which is discussed down to 73. 18, 383 A, is again 
primarily aimed at savage ideas of the metamorphoses of the 
gods, rooted, as we now suppose, in the most primitive 
superstition. But the argument is so broadly stated as to 
tell in some degree against modern religious ideas, and 
apparently to assume a Jewish standpoint as regards plastic 
representation of the deity. (See, however, Nettleship in 
Hellenica, 96-7.) 

12. ‘And’ is it not the case that—are best?’ We may 380E 
trace this principle, the connection of goodness with single- 
ness, strength and stability, through the whole of Plato’s 
thought. It forced itself upon him as a corrective to the 
current doctrine that ‘all things pass and nothing endures,’ 


92 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


and also to the undue predominance of emotion and the love 
of political change and novelty which he observed in the 
Greek temper. As here in the account of the deity, so in 
Phedo (80 8) this principle asserts itself in his discussion of 
soul, and throughout his writings in the theory of the object 
of knowledge. More especially in the Republic it embodies 
itself in the musical and literary criticism, in the whole system 
of rules for the guidance and control of the ‘imitative’ dis- 
position, and indeed in the entire structure of the common- 
wealth. 

381 B28. ‘ Everything which is good—is least liable to be 
changed.’ Our ideas demand motion and growth as a 
condition of life. Probably, however, too much has been 
made of the opposition between this point of view and that 
of Plato. (See below, on his conception of Astronomy in 
Book vi.) If indeed we say that ‘the end is progress,’ then 
we seem to push our ideas to an unintelligible extreme. 
Plato does not seem really to represent the divine being as 
an empty abstraction. (See 7I. 1, 381 Cc.) 

D 71. 14. ‘Gods in the likeness of wandering strangers.’ 
This belief in ‘entertaining angels unawares’ is used in 
Homer as an argument for kindness to strangers, as again, 
‘All strangers and poor men are sent by God.’ Plato dis- 
regards this aspect. 

E 23. ‘How certain gods go about by night,’ a prohibition of 
bogey stories, which is found, I suppose, hard enough to 
enforce to-day. 

382 A 38. ‘A genuine lie,’ more literally, ‘a true lie,’ which is the 
paradox for which Plato apologises. 

72. 2. ‘To lie (or ‘be mistaken’) with the highest part of 
himself.’ In maintaining that ignorance is by universal 
consent more objectionable than wilful deception, Plato 
primarily alludes to the simple fact that every one resents 
being deceived ; i.e. 2” his own case every one without excep- 
tion sets this down as an evil. 

382 B to. ‘Concerning absolute realities.’ This sounding phrase, 


BOOK TI. 93 


with its echoes of speculation, misrepresents the Greek, which 
is simply the neuter plural of the definite article joined with 
the present participle of the verb ‘to be.’ ‘ Facts,’ ‘truths,’ 
‘ what zs,’ seem the natural equivalents. Jowett has ‘highest 
realities’ in allusion to ‘highest subjects’ above, but in this 
line ‘highest’ is an insertion of the translator. 

17. ‘The spoken lie is a kind of imitation.’ This is true 
of a mistake, but we are surprised that it should be said of 
a lie, the essence of which is the will to deceive, and which 
is therefore just not the true reflection of the speaker’s mind. 
Plato seems to have before him ultimately the idea that a 
voluntary falsehood is something under our control, while in 
ignorance we are helpless. And in part at least he is alluding 
to fiction in which there is no question of intent to deceive. 

32. ‘Is it not our ignorance of the true history.’ (See note D 
on 66. 4 above.) 

73. 18. ‘That the gods neither metamorphose themselves.’ 383 A 
Signs and dreams are not taken as ifso facto imposition, but 
only when (as with the dream sent to Agamemnon) the 
intention is to deceive. Cf. 1 Kings xxii. 22. This and 
the former ‘canon of Theology’ mark a final breach with 
early superstition. Whether they are inconsistent with what 
is true in later and higher forms of anthropomorphism would 
be a different question. 

74. 2. ‘As godlike and godfearing’: cf. 65. 18 and note, C 
and also 219. 4, 500, where the term ‘godlike’ is applied in 
a more developed sense, but still with the implication that 
men will become like that which they worship. 

This passage closes the discussion of the general light in 
which the divine nature should be presented to the minds of 
the young through imaginative literature. 


BOOK III 


Sect. 31. 75- 1, 386 A—84. 34, 392 C. 


Further elements of the moral ideal, so far as this ts con- 
veyed to the young through the substance of imaginative literature 
concerning superior beings. 


386A 75. 4. ‘Honour the gods and their parents.’ Duty and 
reverence to parents was a fundamental element of the Greek 
moral creed. These words refer back to 66. 9, where the 
story of Cronos is stigmatised as ‘the greatest lie on the 
highest subject.’ (See, too, 66. 28.) 

A 5. ‘Set no small value on mutual friendship.’ Compare 
66. 36, 378 E, and 62. 13, 375 B. Thus ‘the earliest lessons 
of education are to appeal to that quality in the soul which 
Plato regarded as the highest and most distinctively human 
in man, the element in virtue of which he is not a mere 
isolated atom and centre of resistance, but capable of 
attraction both to what is higher than himself and what is 
like himself.’ Nettleship, Me//entca, 98, and note the whole 
passage. 

8. ‘If we intend our citizens to be brave.’ Courage is the 
next essential. Death on the battle-field was for the ordinary 
Greek mind the typical act of loyalty, and not to be afraid 
of death was the true test of courage (literally, ‘ manliness’). 
Plato accepts this notion of manliness as at least a starting- 
point for the training of youth, although even in this discus- 


sion he begins to deepen and extend it. The quotations 
94 


BOOK I. 95 


which he brings together show how terrible to the Greek 
imagination the idea of death was. 

22. ‘Neither true nor beneficial.’ Untrue, although in 386C 
fiction, z.e. inconsistent with the main requirements of good 
life. We do not know the truth about the next world, but 
that does not abolish our responsibility for the pictures which 
we draw of it. (See 66. 4 above, and note.) Here again the 
representations complained of are for the most part a legacy 
from savage superstition—the underworld considered as a 
grave, and the feeble unintelligent wraith. 

76. 32 ff. ‘So much the less ought they to be recited in 387 Band 
the hearing of boys and men.’ It would be difficult to © 
maintain that terrible ideas of the other world have, histori- 
cally speaking, made men bad soldiers by increasing the 
terror of death, but undoubtedly they tend to make the 
mind unreliable, and sometimes unhinge it altogether. 

77. 16. ‘Then shall we also strike out the weepings and D 
the wailings?’ Extreme emotion is unreasonable for two 
reasons ; for our friend himself death is not terrible, if he is 
good ; and our own loss should not find us without resources 
in ourselves, which may enable us to meet it. 

27. ‘Such a man contains within himself,’ literally, ‘is E 
self-sufficing for good life,’ the adjective being the same as 
that translated ‘independent,’ 53. 38, 367 B. The present 
passage need not be taken to contradict that referred to, 
although it undoubtedly points to another side of the moral 
ideal, that insisted on at a later time by the Stoics. There 
are certain obvious links between Socrates, the Cynics, and 
the Stoics. Cf. 214. 496. We miss here a distinction to 
which we are accustomed, between self-restraint and in- 
sensibility. It is well, we think, not to be intoxicated by 
emotion, but it is not well to be insensible to the breaking 
of human ties. We must not, however, forget how closely 
self-indulgence in emotion is bound up with the expression 
of it. With all this the reader should compare Book x. 347. 


604-5. 


96 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


388D 79. 1. ‘For if—our young men were to listen seriously.’ 
The tendency to imitation is again insisted on. The con- 
ception of manliness or courage is passing into that of self- 
control in general. 

E 15. ‘Our guardians ought not to be given to laughter.’ 
Excessive laughter is regarded as a symptom and indulgence 
of what we might call a hysterical tendency. Every extreme 
of emotion is likely to produce reaction. Compare the 
objection to marked and frequent ‘transitions’ or changes in 
music, 90-I. 397. 

389 B33. ‘A high value must be set also upon truth.’ The 
duty of truthfulness is brought under the head of obedience, 
a mode of regarding it which has importance in education, 
but is only preparatory to the conception of truth as it con- 
cerns the statesman and thinker. 

D_ 8o. 20. ‘ Will not our young men need to be temperate?’ 
Temperance or self-control is to the Greek the great quality 
complementary to manliness or courage. In Plato they tend, 
as we saw, to come together. He describes it, three lines 
below, as both external and inward—as recognition of the 
law without and possession of it within. One of the ‘needs’ 
which brings men together in society is, it will be remembered, 
that of reinforcement from without for the higher element 
within them. (See above, 53. 38, 369 B, with note and 
reference.) 

390A 81. 5. ‘Drunken sot ’—addressed by Achilles to Agamem- 
non. 

391D 83. 20. ‘Either—or’; it does not matter how the myth is 
amended, as long as the required effect is attained. 

392A 84. 8. ‘The mode of speaking about men.’ The facts of 
human life are the very matter in dispute, and we cannot 
pass judgment on views of them until we have investigated 
the real relations of righteousness and happiness in human 
life. Then how could he judge the presentations of the 
divine nature and other superior beings? Perhaps because 
the central and difficult problems, e.g. of character in relation 


BOOK I. 97 


to happiness and to social duty, which concern the mature 
and civilised man, are not dealt with in those stories of the 
youth of the race, and he has only passed judgment on certain 
simple virtues which belong to youth and are merely the 
foundation of citizen life. 

Here, as often, Plato’s directness shocks us, and we should 
understand him better if he spoke more circuitously. He 
seems to be demanding from the poet a crude apportionment 
of rewards to goodness. But it is not so. He is justified in 
the strength of his statement by the force of the bias which 
he has to counteract. Pessimism is rooted both in senti- 
mentalism and in the ostentation of worldly wisdom, and as 
against this influence it is perfectly fair to demand of art a 
presentation of life which shall on the whole be typical and 
true. Sentimental fiction to-day often takes the line of 
Glaucon on 44. 362. 


84. 35, 392 C—O2. 16, 398 B. Sect. 32, 


The problem of form in imaginative literature; that ts, the 
importance for good and evil of the tendency to imitate or throw 
oneself into alien minds and objects. 


84. 36. ‘Narratives’ and ‘form,’ more literally, ‘speech’ 392 C 
and ‘ speaking,’ or ‘ tales’ and ‘ telling’ ; more simply, ‘so much 
for the tales, and now let us consider the telling.’ And in the 
following line, ‘ What ought to be said and the mode of saying 
it,’ rather ‘ What ought to be said, and ow it should be said.’ 

41. ‘I do not understand.’ The usual mark of a novel 
and important distinction. No doubt Plato’s treatment is 
suggested by discussions current at the time, but he clearly 
intends to indicate that the question of style as a matter of 
ethical importance is new to the average Athenian. 

85. 40. ‘But when he delivers a speech iz the character of 393 B and 
another man,’ etc., more literally, ‘as being some one else, 
then shall we not say that he, as much as possible, makes his 
own speaking like to the person whom he has indicated as 
about to speak?’ We must remember that though Plato is 

G 


98 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


speaking of literature, he has in mind chiefly a public of 
hearers rather than readers. ‘Style’ (literally ‘speaking ’) 
includes, therefore, delivery as well as the dramatic element 
in the written poem. 

C 86. 4. ‘And when one man assumes a resemblance,’ etc., 
more literally, ‘Now to make oneself like another man in 
voice or gesture (bearing) is to imitate him to whom one makes 
oneself like.’ These simple definitions must be carefully 
noted, for they contain what is to Plato the essence of the 
whole matter. 

E 22. ‘The priest came and prayed.’ From here to the end © 
of the passage is an analysis of //ad, i. 17-42, the speeches 
being turned into oblique oration, so as to become mere 
narrative. 

394 C 87. 13. ‘And is chiefly to be found in dithyrambic poetry.’ 
Lyrical poetry, that is to say, as the direct expression of the 
poet’s personality, comes under the head of pure ‘recital.’ 
This is a suggestive meeting of extremes, that the poetry 
which seems to us most restricted to mere feeling should 
seem to Plato furthest from unreality. 

24. ‘This, then, was precisely what I meant,’ etc. The real 
point at issue in the problem ‘ow’ things should be said, is 
how far, and with what kind of exceptions, it is a sound 
principle in poetry to aim at throwing oneself into alien 
personalities and strange situations. 

D 29. ‘Whether we shall admit tragedy and comedy into our 
city.’ Adeimantus at last gets hold of the question, but only 
from the outside. Socrates’ answer, by which Plato gives a 
plain hint to his interpreters (see 254. 529 and note), shows 
that something more than this is at stake, viz., a fundamental 
principle affecting the whole of life. ‘As a vessel runs before 
the wind,’ more literally, ‘whither the argument, like a wind, 
may take us, thither we must go,’ a beautiful expression of the 
dialectic method in all its faith and freedom. 

E 38. ‘Ought our guardians to be apt imitators.’ There 
seems a sharp transition from the question ‘is imitative poetry 


BOOK Tf. 99 


a good thing?’ to the question ‘are our ruling class to be 
*‘imitators” or “given to imitation” ?’ which is discussed 
from here onwards. We should be inclined to say that novel 
reading or going to theatres may be a good thing, though it 
would not be well for us to become novelists or actors. But 
Plato, regarding the matter as one of principle, considers that 
as we enter into the poet’s work, we really subject ourselves 
to the vicissitudes of impersonation which it includes. In 
practice, too, Greek education through poetry involved sing- 
ing and reciting, which gives the ‘ow to say things’ much 
more effect than reading to oneself. The question, when thus 
stated, is brought under the principle of division of labour 
(see back, 55. 370). 

88. 1. The line of argument seems to be: Experience 394 E 
shows that even within the province of art each main type of 
imitation excludes every other; the same is the case with 
occupations in the province of reality (25, 395 B); @ /for- 
tiori, therefore, it will apply to the attempt to combine the 
province of artistic impersonation with the duties of real life. 
Of course the principle of division of labour, when thus 
applied, must be understood to rest on the positively disquali- 
fying effect of some occupations for others, not merely on the 
want of time to learn two trades thoroughly. 

30. ‘That they may acquire consummate skill,’ etc., 395 C 
more lit., ‘to be consummate artificers of freedom for their 
commonwealth.’ 

34. ‘Or if they do imitate, let them imitate.’ Imitation 
cannot be excluded from life; it is just because it is an all- 
powerful influence that it needs such strict regulation and 
direction. 

38. ‘Lest from the imitation they be infected with the 
reality’: cf. note on 67. 2 above, and 351. 606. 

40. ‘Imitations whether of bodily gestures,’ etc. Compare p 
Pater, Plato and Platonism, p. 248. ‘ Imitation—it enters into 
the very fastnesses of character; and we, our souls, our- 
selves, are for ever imitating what we see and hear—the forms, 


100 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


the sounds which haunt our memories, our imagination. We 
imitate, not only if we play a part on the stage, but when we 
sit as spectators, while our thoughts follow the acting of 
another, when we read Homer and put ourselves lightly, 
fluently into the place of those he describes ; we imitate un- 
consciously the line and colour of the walls around us, the 
trees by the wayside, the animals we pet and make use of, 
the very dress we wear.’ The depth of this idea of imitation, 
which Aristotle shares with Plato, is little’ understood by 
modern critics of their zesthetic doctrine. 

395 D8. 2. ‘We shall not permit those in whom we take an 
interest—to imitate a woman,’ etc. We shall understand 
much of this criticism better, if, in accordance with the wide 
meaning assigned to ‘imitation’ in the previous note, we apply 
it to our own reading of novels and commonplace poetry, or 
to our enjoyment of pictorial art simply for the story and the 
sentiment. ‘The theatre is no such living power to-day as in 
Plato’s time. 

The disparaging reference to woman in this and many other 
passages (see especially Phaedo, 60, 117, and contrast this 
with the feeling of John, xix. 26) jars on the modern mind. 
We should remember that Plato not only felt the evil of 
women’s condition but proposed the remedy. 

396 C 90. 4. ‘Will not be ashamed of this kind of imitation.’ 
He will throw himself into such characters as he would be 
content to resemble, but not others, ‘unless it be for mere 
pastime’ (17) ; contrast ‘seriously’ (30). 

397A 27. ‘The man who is not of this character.’ On the 
connection between the inferior mental elements and the 
abundance of material for imitation, see 349. 22, 604 E. 

29. ‘In his narration’ we should ‘expect ‘imitation,’ which 
some here substitute for the reading of most Mss. J.’s render- 
ing is certainly self-contradictory, but D. and V. seem to treat 
it rightly. Narrative is throughout a general term, including 
simple narration and impersonation. 

B38. ‘His style will either consist wholly of the imitation of 


BOOK il. 101 


sounds and form,’ more literally, ‘his mode of speaking will 

be wholly by way of imitation in sounds and gestures’: com- . 
pare above, 86. 4 and note. This paragraph is a piece of 

furious satire. One who has given up all care for significance 

and value in that which he makes himself resemble, will not 

only reproduce any human frame of mind however senseless 

or hysterical, but will employ the human voice to represent 

mere animal and mechanical sounds. Probably all schools of 

criticism are agreed, on one ground or another, that a mere 

reproduction of trivial detail is a degraded form of art. 

42. ‘These, then, are the two kinds of style which I meant.’ 
(Kinds = Eidé) The two ‘modes of speaking’ are mainly 
distinguished by the number and nature of the ‘transitions,’ 
literally, ‘changes,’ QI. 4 and 9, 397 B and c, which they 
respectively include. It is the ‘variety’ and ‘multiplicity’ of 
the ‘composite’ forms of art which Plato dreads. They 
appear to him incompatible with the singleness and thorough- 
ness appropriate to a true masculine and civic character. 
And although in Plato’s time, and far more in later periods, 
there has been art of the very highest quality which is also of 
the very highest complexity, yet the question of principle 
which he raises still goes to the root of the matter. Is it, or 
is it not, the purpose of art to represent for representation’s 
sake, so as to drag the mind through as many varieties as 
possible of experience and emotion? Or is it not true that 
the highest art, however complex, remains master of its com- 
plexity, and does not carry the mind aimlessly out of itself, 
but rather unveils or expresses to it a greater and stronger 
self? It is quite natural that Plato, coming first, should 
realise the principle mainly in the simplest case, and assume 
a hostile attitude to much which for us seems to meet the 
spirit of his requirements. See Mr. Pater’s chapter on ‘ Plato’s 
Aesthetics’ in Plato and Platonism. 

QI. 20. ‘While by far the most attractive to children,’ etc. : 397 D 
compare I32. 23, 431¢. Women, children, and slaves are 
as usual put on a level. It is plain that the correlative to 


102 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


what Plato has in mind could not be Shakespeare, Browning, 
and Brahms, but rather the music-hall and the low-class novel. 


398 B. 92. 5. ‘For the sake of our real good,’ more literally, ‘for 


Sect. 33. 


our profit.’ There is, it might be maintained, a good deal of 
cant about the danger of introducing ethical considerations 
into esthetic. A really substantive ethical requirement could 
usually be sustained on esthetic grounds, and the omission to 
state it in esthetic terms is not a very serious error except in 
a modern philosophical treatise. It must be a poor work of 
art for which we are not ‘the better.’ 


92. 17, 398 c—96. 9, 401 A. 


Melody and rhythm also are expressive of character and must 
be controlled accordingly. 


C 92. 27. ‘I cannot this moment come to a satisfactory con- 


D 


clusion’ marks the analysis of musical expression as a new 
departure. 

31. ‘Three parts—the words, the harmony, and the rhythm.’ 
Jowett, ‘the words, the melody, andthe rhythm.’ Nettleship, 
as a rough equivalent, ‘ words, key, and time.’ See Hedlenica, 
p- 114. It is clear that the ancient world had not what we 
call ‘harmony,’ though this term is derived from the word here 
used, which originally means a joint or fitting together. It 
seems obvious that something is meant which was not so much 
a melody as a characteristic of a class of melodies. ‘ Key’ 
may suggest the sort of meaning required. 


309 Aand 93. 32. ‘That particular harmony which will suitably repre- 


sent the tones,’ etc, literally, ‘will suitably ime It is 
interesting to note the development of ‘imitation’ proper into 
expression or symbolism. Here Plato speaks of music which 
would recall certain tones and accents of voice. In 1. 37, 
‘another harmony, expressive of the feelings of, the words 
italicised are inserted by the translators. The construction is 
elliptical, but I should suppose that that of the former sen- 
tence runs on, so that here also we are dealing with music as 


BOOK If. 103 


recalling the human voice. With the words (41) ‘lending 
himself,’ a fresh construction begins, which seems to show 
that the connection with ‘tones and accents of’ is forgotten 
or broken off. See below, 94-5. 400 A-E. 

94. 6. ‘Imitate the tones of’; he is still thinking of simple 399 C 
imitation. 

11. ‘A variety of strings.’ Note on this page the numerous 
terms indicating variety or multiplicity, as the element against 
which war was to be made; ‘a// harmonies’ ‘ many strings’ 
‘many harmonies’ ‘a variety of rhythms’; here a peculiar 
word is used meaning parti-coloured, by which Plato often 
expresses his aversion. See ‘embroidered,’ the same word, in 
account of democracy, 288. 557. 

94. 33. ‘Purging the city,’ see 58. 372 above. The city E 
‘had no morality before it was diseased, but will not be good 
until purged of its disease. Plato probably did not intend 
this consequence, but it follows significantly from his de- 
scription. 

39. ‘The natural rhythms of a Welisepnlated and manly 
life’: ‘natural’ is an insertion, but perhaps convenient. In 
saying that a certain ‘time’ or rhythm is ‘of,’ or is natural to, 

a certain type of life, we have got beyond the representation 
of sound by sound. 

95. 8. ‘Which kinds of rhythm express which kinds of life.’ 400 A 
The translation conceals how the idea of imitation is being 
pressed. Literally, ‘which kinds of rhythm are imitations of 
which kinds of life.’ 

23. ‘For I cannot speak positively.’ The demarcation C 
between technical details and general principles of criticism is 
indicated by the contrast between this expression and ‘ But 
this point at least you can settle,’ just below. Compare 67. 
378-9, ‘You and I are not poets, etc. 

28. ‘Grace and awkwardness’ are effects attaching to good D 
and bad rhythm. 

31. ‘And good and bad chythti are,’ etc., z.e. attach to and 
assume the quality of (literally, are made like to) good and 


104 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


bad modes of utterance (including what we call style and 
delivery, compare 85. 40 above and note); and so do beauty 
of ‘harmony’ and the reverse. For meaning of ‘harmony,’ 
see note on 92. 31 above. 

- 39. ‘The style and the words. Are they not determined 
by the moral disposition of the soul?’ Jowett, ‘the temper of 
the soul.’ The Greek word translated by ‘moral disposition’ 
or ‘temper’ is ‘éthos.’ ‘ Moral,’ as normally understood by us, 
is too narrow a term for ‘éthos’: a good or beautiful ‘ éthos’ 
would imply much more than morality in our sense, as we 
may see even from Plato’s first rough sketch of the formation 
of character in the opening of the present book. On the 
other hand, however, éthos does not cover ‘character’ or 
‘individuality’ in the full modern sense. It implies some 
approval or disapproval. The point is that both matter and 
manner of poetic art are the symbol and utterance of the soul, 
and (l. 41) the specifically musical qualities of song further 
carry out the expressive idea of the ‘style,’ or form and mode 
of utterance demanded by the thought. 

96. 1. ‘Then good language and good harmony,’ etc. 
Summing up his series of connections, Plato concludes that 
beauty in all the aspects of song—words, key or melody, 
and rhythm or time—is ultimately the consequence and 
expression of (literally, follows upon) a good character or dis- 
position ; and this, as if to guard himself against the narrow- 
ness of critics, he carefully explains to be ‘a mind that in 
good truth is rightly and beautifully framed in respect of its 
controlling disposition. ‘The words italicised are an attempt to 
render the term éthos suitably to the general meaning of the 
passage. On the whole passage note (a) the high symbolic 
or expressive capacity attributed to music—a view in which 
Aristotle is thoroughly at one with Plato. This and analo- 
gous discussions are the real working part of Plato’s zesthetic 
analysis, and though apt to be neglected in favour of more 
poetical passages, such as the description of abstract beauty in 
the Phaedrus, undoubtedly contain the germs of sound 


BOOK III. 105 


esthetic theory; (f) the extreme simplicity of the music to 
which Plato is referring, and to which alone so certain and | 
general an influence can be ascribed. (See Nettleship in 
fellenica, p. 118. ‘He assumes throughout that music always 
implies words, and the whole subject of harmony, in its 
modern sense, is absent from his consideration.’) 


96. 10, 401 A—QQ. 18, 403 C. Sect. 34. 


The same dependence of outward grace upon expression of 
character, which has been traced in poetry and music, is also 
exhibited in formative art and material objects generally. 
Education through the eye, therefore, belongs to the training in 
music, which is essentially a training tn the love of beauty, and 
has effects both on perception and on. emotion. 


96. 11. ‘And such qualities’; here, as two lines above, 401 A 
‘qualities’ is inserted by the translators to explain a neuter 
plural pronoun. The reference is to the outward and inward 
qualities ‘good harmony and grace,’ etc., so far as they can be 
understood of life and of visual form. The Greek ideas of 
harmony and rhythm can to a great extent be thus under- 
stood. Even ‘style,’ as we saw, includes gesture and personal 
bearing. 

‘Into painting and all similar workmanship.’ Everything 
that has form has expressiveness and therefore beauty or 
ugliness. This inclusion of the minor ‘arts of life’ shows the 
width and thoroughness of Plato’s conception of beauty. It 
is with the ‘higher’ or more strictly representative arts that he 
finds the greatest difficulty. 

20. ‘Allied to and expressive of’; the words in italics A 
are, literally, ‘imitations of.’ Note how the meaning of 
‘imitation’ has been extended since 93. 29, 399 A. 

25. ‘The likeness of a good moral character,’ more B 
literally, ‘the likeness of the good disposition.” While frankly 
admitting that Plato’s judgment of art is cast more than we like 


106 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


in ethical form, we must not ascribe to him the whole narrow- 
ness of our negative morality. Compare 95. 39, 400 Dand note. 
Theword ‘likeness,’ or ‘image,’ with kindred terms, plays a very 
important part in the Republic. Compare 97. 33, 402 B and 
note. The account of life in the ARefudlic is, in fact, con- 
structed on the ascending scale of the ‘ Den,’ Book vii. zmzz. 
Images of art and fiction, the facts of civic life, are followed 
by abstract criticism which leads up to a concrete and ultimate 
reality. 

34. ‘Among images of vice,’ literally, ‘badness,’ the most 
general term possible. Jowett, ‘moral deformity.’ The 
context shows that the question is not primarily of excluding 
representations of great passions or temptations, though 
these, no doubt, would for the most part have to go, but in 
the first instance of banishing the sordidness and vulgarity of 
daily surroundings which actually do defile the mind, not by 
great shocks, but, as:Plato says, little by little. I venture to 
extract Jowett’s translation of this famous passage. ‘We 
would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral 
deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and 
feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little 
by little, until they silently gather a festering mass of cor- 
ruption in their own soul. Let our artists rather be those who 
are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and 
graceful ; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid 
fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything ; 
and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye 
and ear, like a health-giving breeze from a purer region, and 
insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into likeness 
and sympathy with the beauty of reason.’ 

401D 96. 44. ‘Imperceptibly from their earliest childhiodd?s this 
- Implies the doctrine of moral education, common to Plato and 
Aristotle, that feelings and habits have to be formed in 
accordance with a principle which the pupil does not and 
cannot as yet possess, in order that when he becomes capable 
of seeing life as a whole, the principle may naturally come 


BOOK Ii. 107 


home to him and he may have nothing to unlearn. Compare 
97. 17, 402 A, and the epigrammatic statement, Aristotle’s 
Ethics, ti. 2, 1104, b. 11, ‘ wherefore, as Plato says, they should 
have been trained from their youth up to be pleased and 
pained by what they ought, for this is the right education.’ 

‘The true beauty of reason,’ more literally, ‘the beautiful 
principle,’ the principle which is such that itself, and any 
embodiment of it, is beautiful. 

97. 5. ‘A musical education, rather, as above, ‘nurture.’ 
The idea of proper nutriment for a living and growing thing, 
expressed in the simile of the pasture just above, pervades 
Plato’s whole conception of education and environment in 
their relation to the soul. See, for a striking instance, 207. 
491. The conception of ‘ music’ has been expanded so as to 
include all that appeals to the mind through the imagination 
and sense-perceptions by way of expressiveness, that is, the 
realm of beauty. 

13. ‘ Will commend beautiful objects’; in this passage the 
emphasis is on ‘most just,’ literally, ‘rightly,’ repeated four 
lines down. Feeling is to be trained so as to be instinctively 
‘right,’ before the mind is capable of taking in a principle ; 
and ‘when reason comes,’ when the principle is presented to 
the mind, it will be welcome ‘ by the instinct of relationship,’ 
or, rather, ‘because it comes home to’ the feeling thus 
prepared. Cf. Aristotle’s Zzhics, i. 3 and 4. 

25. ‘ Recognising—the letters,’ a striking simile for learn- 402 A . 
ing to distinguish in our surroundings capeaiane of which we 
know the value. 

27. ‘In either a small word ora great.’ Perhaps, rather, as 
Jowett, occupying ‘a space large or small.’ Compare above, 
53- 3, 368 D. 

32. ‘ The images of letters’ or their reflections ; this points 
forward to the classification of grades of knowledge at the end 
of Book vi., the allegory of the cave at the beginning of Book 
vu. and the argument of Book x. The likenesses, or images, 
of art and sensuous beauty, belong for Plato to the region of 


108 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


least reality, of dreams or shadows. Here, in fact, where he 
seems to be reaching forward to the fullest conceivable import 
of an education through sense and feeling, he assigns them a 
higher value and connection with the realities which they 
express than in any subsequent passage. ‘The same art and 
study’: see following note. 

402 B40. ‘Become truly musical.’ The effect of ‘music’ on 
perception or cognition. We shall not be men of culture till 
we are able to recognise the principles of goodness, ‘both 
themselves and their images,’—that is, in actual life, and in 
artistic representations of it or in instinctive feelings and 
judgments. ‘The same art and study.’ Plato can hardly 
mean that the ‘principles’ fall within the sphere of ‘ music’ in 
the sense in which he has described it. The continuation of 
the passage seems to show that he has in mind the recogni- 
tion of great qualities which is sufficient to produce enthusiasm 
for them, not the theoretical explanation of them. We are to 
learn to read the world truly, and not as ill-trained minds 
‘do, all upside down, mistaking insolence for courage, or 
prodigality for liberality. The training in right feelings and 
right perception, through all forms of expressive art and 
disciplined life under due guidance, is to bring the young 
people up to a point at which they will readily recognise 
genuine goodness in the actual world. 

D 98. 9. ‘Who combines the possession of moral beauty,’ 
more literally, ‘in whom there is the coincidence of beautiful 
dispositions (éthé, the term from which ‘ethical’ is derived) in 
his soul and (traits) in his appearance congruous and _har- 
monious with those, as partaking of the same pattern’ (mould 
or type, the term used of the ‘canons of theology’). The 
term ‘moral’ introduced by Davies and Vaughan is too 
modern, ‘Traits’ is not in the Greek, ‘congruous’ and 
harmonious being neuter plurals. We are apt on reading the 
translation to ask ourselves whether ‘physical’ beauty, as we 
understand it, can have real connection with ‘ moral’ beauty. 
But the original does not assume the two opposites so definitely. 


BOOK 7/1. 109 


16. Those who combine most perfectly,’ etc.; this 
repetition is not in the Greek, which merely says ‘persons 
as far as possible such like’ (ze. as described above). 
The point insisted on is harmony of appearance with a 
beautiful mind. 

24. ‘Has pleasure in excess,’ etc. The influence of E 
‘music’ on desire and emotion, as previously on cognition. 
Cf. Tor. 18, 404 E, and 123. 34-8, 425 a. Loyalty=the 
spirit of lawfulness, is at the root of the true love of beauty 
as disciplined by ‘ music.’ 

37. ‘Ina sober and harmonious temper,’ lit., ‘temperately 403 A 
and musically.’ Temperance=safety or preservation of mind, 
the state of one who keeps his head, opposed to madness or 
excess of any kind, and is the second great cardinal virtue 
of the Greeks by the side of fortitude or manliness. The 
modern reader will observe that even the purest personal 
affection cannot be identified, as seems here to be attempted, 
with esthetic emotion—the ‘love of the beautiful,’ gg. 18. 
The former must of course always contain a purely individual 
element, however it may be reinforced by enthusiasm for the 
beautiful qualities possessed by its object. Plato’s theory of 
the affections is necessarily truncated by the nature of the senti- 
ment which for a Greek approached most nearly to chivalrous 
or romantic feeling. But it remains true that beautiful quali- 
ties and the recognition of them are essential to the highest 
and most durable forms of affection, and that so far it assumes 
the character which Plato here assigns it. 

gg. 18. ‘The love of the beautiful.’ This includes both 403 C 
what we understand by a love of beauty as such, and a 
training of the personal affections to attach themselves to 
really admirable qualities, and assume a character correspond- 
ing to that of their object. The two dispositions in question 
undoubtedly reinforce each other, and even overlap, but 
they can hardly be reduced to one. The modern idea of the 
family gives the personal affections an independent basis and 
justification. 


Sect. 35. 


403 D 


404 A 


110 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


QQ. 19, 403 C—I07. 32, 410 B. 
Gymnastic, or training of spirit and physique for service in life. 


99. 28. ‘A good soul will by its excellence render the body 
as perfect,’ etc. Modern doubts concerning the influence of 
soul on body do not affect the point of such discussions as 
these. Plato is merely contrasting ideas as to the aim of 
education with mere prescriptions for bodily health and vigour. 

35. ‘General principles,’ ‘types,’ the word used for ‘ canons 
of theology’ above. 

100. 4. ‘Then will the habit of body,’ etc. The critique 
of Athleticism and Valetudinarianism which occupies a great 
part of this section is still of value, and displays Plato’s pro- 
found and direct views of life, democratic in the highest sense 
of the word, in their full robustness. Compare the excellent 
comment in Nettleship’s essay, é/lenica, p.130. Aristotle has 
much to say on the errors of athleticism in Greece. Compare 
Newman, Aristotle’s Politics, vol. i. p. 357: ‘Aristotle would, 
however, reform ‘‘ Gymnastic.” Some, he says, of the states 
which paid most attention to the education of the young, 
gave them a physical training fit rather for professional athletes 
than for future citizens, fatal to beauty of form and physical 
growth, fatal also to fitness for political activity and to health 
and vigour. The Lacedzmonians also erred, though in a 
different way ; their system produced not gluttonous, sleepy 
athletes, but fierce, wild, wolf-like men; for courage, they 
held, went with this temper, which Aristotle denies.’ Accord- 
ing to the scheme of studies in Book vi. below, the 
‘gymnastic’ training was to be pursued by itself from the 
age of 17 or 18 to 20 (264. 537). This provision probably 
indicated the nature of the training in question, for these 
were the years in which a young Athenian discharged military 
or patrol duty within the borders of Attica, as a foretaste of 
the full military service which was one great aspect of citizen 
life. Thus we are not here to think mezvely of ‘ gymnastics’ 
with ropes and bars or of ‘athletic sports,’ but also of drill, 


BOOK J. 111 


riding, hunting, the practice of arms, and some limited share 
in actual campaigning. 

14. ‘A better combined regimen.’ Jowett, ‘a finer sort of 
training.’ ‘Our public schools and universities have no lack 
of the sleepy and brutalised athlete, who probably could 
not serve on a campaign or a geographical expedition.’— 
Nettleship, p. 133. 

26. Plato’s humorous deference to the authority of Homer 404 B 
and Asclepius serves as a satire on the uncritical use of poeti- 
cal ‘texts’ in controversy, just as scriptural texts are used to- 
day, and throws much light on the prevailing misuse of poetry 
against which his denial of its moral value was a just protest. 

IOI. 1. ‘ Variety,’ see 15 below. Compare above, 94. 38, D 
399 E, where the same word is used when speaking of rhythm. 

12.‘ That kind of music and singing’: compare 94. 20, 399 D. E 

18. ‘As in music it was productive of temperance’: 
compare 98. 24, 402 E and note. 

22. ‘Law and physic.’ These phenomena of civilisation 4o5 A 
are, like the guardian class themselves, introduced in relation 
to a necessary evil (Cf. 60-61. 373-5) and then made subservi- 
ent to anidealend. (See 107. 410 a below.) Thus Plato seems 
to set an example of neither denying the historical necessity 
which generates civilisation, nor acquiescing in all that is, as 
right. He rather tries to track out and seize ‘the soul of 
goodness in things evil.’ 

32. ‘A strong proof of defective education’: cf. 1 Corin- B 
thians vi. 1-7. 

102. 5. ‘Illness incidental to,’ etc., probably as Jowett, C 
simply ‘epidemic.’ 

g. ‘The clever sons of Asclepius,’ ze. the physicians. D 
They invent out-of-the-way names for illnesses out of polite- 
ness, not liking to tell their patients that they eat too much 
and work too little. Cf. 125. 426. 

13. ‘Because at Troy.’ (See Jad, xi. 505-641.) PlatoE 
seems to be referring from memory. The wounded man in 
question is Machaon, himself a physician or descendant of 


112 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


Asclepius. Eurypylus had also been wounded, but is not 
treated in the way described. 

406A 24. ‘Which waits upon diseases ’—‘attendant.’ All this 
is a paraphrase, quite correct, of the meaning of a single 
adjective agreeing with ‘medicine’ and governing ‘disease.’ 
Try, ‘which ministers to the disease.’ 

27. ‘Compound of physic and gymnastic’: ‘gymnastic’ 
chiefly in the shape of ‘training’ or diet. We know the evils 
of valetudinarianism in a wealthy and leisured class, but on 
the other hand we attach more importance to care for the 
weak, and have more experience of a great mind in a sickly 
body, than Plato seems to recognise. See below, 213. 496, 
what Plato himself says of the ‘bridle of Theages.’ The 
independence of ‘ mind’ and ‘body,’ even if they are but two 
modes of organic activity, is practically more familiar to us 
than to Plato, not less; and in this respect, as in some others, 
the famous criticism applies—that he was ‘not ideal enough.’ 

40. ‘It was not because Asclepius did not know’: again the 

B humorous parody of didactic and allegorical interpretation. 
Compare on allegory 67. 378 above. 
103. 1. ‘Each has a work assigned to him,’ the principle 
C of true ‘asceticism’; this word is derived from a Greek 
word which means training or practice in some art or calling. 
On the ‘ work,’ compare 37. 353, and 55. 370. 

3. ‘A fact which we perceive,’ the passage below this shows 
how superficially Plato is regarded if his views are stamped as 
‘aristocratic’ in any current sense. So far as definite service 
to society is concerned, the workman’s life rather sets the 
ideal than lags behind. 

24. ‘Is it because he had a work to do.’ In this passage 

407 A the common feeling about rich and poor is so plainly and 
baldly set down that one may almost fail to observe the irony 
of it, which seems rather to belong to hg facts than to be put 
in by Plato. 

33- ‘ Practise virtue,’ not virtue in our very specialised moral 
or ecclesiastical meaning, but excellence or merit of some 


BOOK Jil. 113 


positive kind, e.g. as a soldier or magistrate or man of science. 
(See examples given below, 104. 1 and 2, 407 B and Cc.) 

104. 25. ‘Thinking medical treatment ill bestowed.’ The E 
respect for life as such seems to lie outside Plato’s horizon, 
and while it unquestionably is a gain to be highly sensitive 
to the claim of the weak and the latent possibilities of all 
humanity, yet Plato’s feeling would find an analogy in that of 
many men to-day who prefer to die in harness rather than 
drag on a few years more in idleness, and also in the attention 
paid to the problem of euthanasia. For some striking 
observations on hereditary disease in relation to marriage, see 
Jowett, Introduction to Repudlic, cxci. 

105. 11. ‘The tragedians.’ It will be seen from the 408 B 
context that Plato is really criticising the popular habit of 
construing poetry as doctrine, almost as much as the matter 
of what the poets say. He has made this false criticism the 
object of his irony throughout. 

18. ‘If he was the son of a god,’ etc.: compare 83. 391. C 

22. ‘Ought we not to have good physicians in the 
city?’ (See note on IOI. 22, 405 A above.) Plato closes 
the discussion on bodily training by referring once more to 
the equivocal good of such training in its most artificial shape, 
and tries to show in the case of medicine, and in that of its 
correlative, punishment (a remedial and preventive view of 
which is thus implied), how the doubtful growths of civilisa- 
tion may be purified and brought to co-operate towards the 
true aim of a commonwealth. 

32. ‘You spoke of two dissimilar things.’ The distinction p 
here insisted on between bodily and mental evil is superfi- 
cially interpreted if we take it to contradict the large con- 
ception of mind or life which Plato shares with Aristotle. 
The : difference between disease and wickedness is not 
explained away, whatever we suppose to be the relation 
between body and mind. Compare 355. 609. Bodily 
disease, even if traced upwards into the region of what we 
call mind, seems to correspond to mental disease rather than 

H 


114 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


to wickedness. Plato does not in these passages take note of 
this latter distinction. 

34. ‘Physicians, it is true.’ A certain experience of ill 
health may be advantageous to the physician by helping him 
to sensitiveness and insight. 

E 106. 2. ‘A juror. Perhaps ‘judge’ would be a better 
translation. The Athenian ‘dicast,’ though one of a body 
of some hundreds and therefore not feeling the individual 
responsibility which we associate with the office of judge, had 
to do for himself the work of a judge so far as it was done 
at all. There was no president of the court to control and 
direct him. 

409 C 22. ‘Knowledge, not personal experience.’ The whole of 
this passage is an important gloss on Socrates’ identification of 
goodness and knowledge, and at the same time points out the 
true relation between genuine and spurious ‘knowledge of the 
world,’ by which Socrates’ doctrine is essentially justified. 

D 34. ‘Shews himself no better than a fool.’ It is an old 
remark that a really shrewd man will always believe in honesty. 

43. ‘For vice can never know both itself and virtue,’ etc. 
Thus goodness, though not restricted to knowledge of the 
good, retains the intellectual superiority which Socrates 
claimed for it. It knows the whole, while badness is only 
compatible with knowledge of a part, and therefore, we should 
add, that part itself cannot be rightly known. Because it 
does not know both itself and goodness, vice cannot truly 
know even itself. 

E 107. 6. ‘Then will you not establish in your city’: 
compare note on 105. 22, 408 c. Even if the remedial and 
preventive theory of punishment is inadequate, it is still a 
great conception that medical science and the administration 
of justice should co-operate towards the extinction of bodily 
and mental defectiveness throughout the community. We 
are only beginning to grasp the bearings of such an idea, as 
for example in the provision of judicially sanctioned treatment 
for inebriates, or of special institutions for other vicious or 


BOOK III. 115 


afflicted classes. Of course this policy, according as it is 
handled, may tend to reduce or to multiply the defective classes. 
27. ‘His object will be rather to stimulate the spirited 
element of his nature’: compare 99. 18, 403 C above. 
There it is pointed out that the mind, or the intelligence, has 
the task of directing the training of the body, but here we 
find that the training of the body is not meant to recognise 
it, so to speak, independently, but constitutes a method of 
reaction upon the mind through the formation of bodily 
habits and the discipline of impulses associated with them. 
By comparing 100. 4, 404 A and note, it will be seen that 
body and mind are not simply two opposites, on the same 
level, but that subordinating body to mind means subor- 
dinating it to a comprehensive purpose in life, and avoiding 
the onesidedness which in Aristotle’s judgment made the 
physical training of most Greek states a failure. 


107. 32, 410 B—IIO. 9, 412 A. Sect. 36. 


The joint aim of ‘ Music’ and ‘ Gymnastic’—to train the 
cultured and manly man, who alone is in the full sense 
‘musical, or a harmonious nature. 


38. ‘They introduce both mainly for the sake of the soul’: C 
contrast 64. 27, 376. The suggestion made eleven lines 
above is reaffirmed and developed as the leading principle of 
education. The actual body, the muscular and organic 
system, must indeed be made serviceable and not unservice- 
able, and so ‘in a secondary way,’ 109. 38, 411 E, body as 
such is the object of training in sport and arms. But the 
main point is the effect upon character. 

108. 5. ‘The softness and gentleness which mark the p 
other,’ etc. (See above, 63. 375-6.) The ‘ philosophic’ aspect 
of the mind is here still regarded as an affectionate and 
sensitive tendency ; its moral relation as controlling desire, 
and its intellectual aspect as the organ of science, are not yet 
fully developed. It is noteworthy that the hardness and 


116 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


coldness of intellectualism, which is so familar an idea to us, 
does not seem to suggest itself to Plato. 

411A 26, ‘And where this harmony exists the soul is both 
temperate and brave.’ Courage or manliness is throughout 
the excellence of the spirited part, but in the later discussion 
not temperance but wisdom is the excellence specially 
corresponding to the philosophic part, temperance being the 
harmony in which spirit and appetite alike recognise the 
sovereignty of the reason. Here, too, it would seem that 
neither the philosophic nor the spirited element can be 
brought to a due ‘pitch’ without involving a definite tension 
in the other—of course they are not really separable—and 
music at any rate has immediate action on the ‘ spirit’ (32. ff.), 
though altogether in the way of ‘softening,’ which does 
not seem a necessary consequence. Compare 93. 398-9. 
‘Gymnastic’ appears to have only an indirect action on the 
philosophic element; ze. the principle of music and the 
philosophic element are already regarded as representing the 
whole, or the harmony and controlling law of the mind. 

E 109. 35. ‘To correct, then,—these two exclusive tem- 
peraments,’ literally, ‘For these two (mental elements) I 
should say that heaven had bestowed two arts on mankind, 
viz., music and gymnastic for the spirited and the philosophical 
(elements), not for sou/ and Jody,’ etc. Davies and Vaughan 
seem to think that Plato is referring to the cross actions, direct 
or indirect, of the two ‘arts,’ viz., ‘music’ on ‘spirit’ and 
‘gymnastic’ on ‘the philosophic element,’ and the context 
of the last page, with the order of the words italicised, gives 
some support to the idea. It is strongly supported by 
Timaeus, 88 c: ‘And therefore the mathematician or any one 
else whose thoughts are much absorbed in some intellectual 
pursuit, must allow his body to have due exercise and practise 
gymnastic ; and he who is careful to fashion the body should 
in turn impart to the soul its proper motions, and should 
cultivate music and all philosophy.’ (Jowett.) At least he 
is urging that a ‘music’ such as to include a right use of 


BOOK Ii. 117 


‘gymnastic’ is necessary for the right training of ezther side of 
the mind. (See 108. 5, 410 D.) It follows from this that the 
martial side of literature and song is not enough by itself to 
develop bravery ; a habit of action is needed as well. Thus 
the two sides of education acquire something like an analogy 
to theory and practice. For the complete conception of the 
whole mind as organised under the reason, compare 327. 
586-7, see IIO. 3, 412 A, and compare the expression 
‘philosophy being the highest music,’ ze. embodiment of law 
and harmony, Phaedo, 61 A. 

IIo. 9. ‘Such an officer will be quite indispensable.’ 412 A 
As in the moral censorship of poetry, so in the supervision of 
education, Plato crudely symbolises his sense of a great need 
by proposing to entrust certain authority to one or more 
officials. It is quite fair, in seeking the core of his ideas, to 
treat such a proposal as mere form belonging to the time, and 
to regard as a partial fulfilment of Plato’s suggestion the 
thought and care bestowed on the educational problem to-day 
not only but a host of officials, but by the best heads among 
men of letters and of science. 


IIO. 10, 412 B—end of Book 111. Sect. 37. 


Selection of those who are to serve as soldiers and as rulers, 
and the laws of this order in outline. 


II0. 10. ‘Outlines —-‘ why should one enter into detail.’ 412 B 
‘ Outlines ’"—moulds or canons, literally ‘types,’ as in account 
of theology. Plato’s reliance on education and the spirit of 
the laws as against detailed enactment is very remarkable. 
Compare especially 124. 425. A reservation must be made on 
this account, when we speak of the apparent lack of develop- 
ment in society as he conceives it. 

20. ‘ Which of the persons so educated.’ The ‘first educa- B 
tion’ is criticised, 244. 521-2, and the mode of selection 
further described, and some matters in the education sup- 
plemented, 262 ff., 535 ff. These comments very probably 


118 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


represent a view adopted by Plato at a later time. But we may 
assume that the ‘three R’s,’ which he there insists on, were 
never meant to be altogether omitted. Formation of char- 
acter, however, is for him as for Robert Owen the chief point 
in education. (See Nettleship, Hedlenica, p. 103.) 

412C 23. ‘Rulers must be the elderly men, and the subjects the 
younger.’ The relation of these two bodies to each other and 
to the rest of the community is not precisely set out, but the 
process of selection described here and in Book vii. implies 
clearly that the rulers will be simply those who, having in 
youth served as soldiers, have distinguished themselves in this 
and other public service and so come to the front in middle 
life and old age. The rejected and less distinguished 
would have to find posts of minor importance, as in actual 
life. Nothing is yet said about women, and there is no sign 
that the whole society is to share even in‘the first steps of 
education, but the conception might readily be expanded in 
this sense. (See note on 114. 8, 415 4 ff.) 

28. ‘Are not the best agriculturists those who are most 
agricultural?’ The repetition of the word in an adjectival 
form as in ‘guardians,’ ‘most guardianlike,’ just below, refers 
to the doctrine of special function rooted in individual nature. 
‘Capable’ in the translation is mere paraphrase. 

D_ 4o. ‘Whose interest he regards as identical with his own.’ 
See this idea expanded, 171. 462 ff. The identity of interest 
between the individual and society may be taken as due either 
to the narrowing of the social purpose, or to the widening of 
the individual purpose ; in the former case it is mechanical, in 
the latter moral. We shall comment on Plato’s view at a 
later point. 

III. 5. ‘Have done what they thought advantageous to 
the state.’ This is the first glimpse we get of the moral con- 
tent involved in the law of function. It occurs four times on 
this and the following page. ‘State’ (Polis) would be better 
rendered by ‘society’ or the commonwealth.’ We must not think 
chiefly of the government when we speak of ‘ Polis.’ Morality 


BOOK Il. 119 


at this stage is considered as purely social; the goodness of a 
good citizen, trained in the best habits and purified traditions 
of his race and his community. In Books v. to vil. this idea 
is revised, and referred to something more fundamental. 

to. ‘Tenacious guardians of this conviction.’ The whole E 
passage which follows (compare also the account of courage, 
130. 429) is of great psychological interest as interpreting the 
Socratic view of wrongdoing by a ‘ forgetful abandonment’ of 
principle due to moral causes, viz., the ‘witchcraft’ of 
pleasure and fear, or the ‘force’ of pain or grief. This is 
quite in accordance with the importance which modern 
psychologists attach to attention in moral action. Compare 
for the play on the word guardian such a saying as ‘He who 
would rule others must rule himself.’ 

15. ‘Opinions appear to me.’ The distinction between 
science and Opinion (or Seeming) has not yet been made (see 
close of Book v.), but the use of the word Opinion at the 
present stage is probably intentional, as indicating notions 
implanted by education, but not yet tested and established 
either by experience of life, or by profound theory. Plato 
would not admit that Science, z.e. genuine concrete knowledge, 
could be thus twisted and obscured. 

18. ‘ By an involuntary act.’ The form of Socrates’ doctrine, 413 A 
that vice is ignorance and therefore involuntary, is retained, 
but the interpretation given greatly alters its bearing. Com- 
pare 313. 577 on the absence of freedom in the soul of the 
voluptuary. 

24. ‘Is it not an evil thing to be the victim of a lie?’ Com- 
pare 72. 2, 382 above on the lie in the soul. 

27. ‘When his opinions represent things as they are,’ more 
literally, ‘when he opines what zs’; ‘things’ being inserted as 
explained above on 5. 18, 330 E, to fill out the neuter plural 
which in Greek needs no substantive. The translators’ 
phrase (also in Jowett) conveys a picture, which nothing in 
the Greek suggests, of our thought as copying a world of 
objects separate from it and complete without it. 


120 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


B 35. ‘Theft practised on them’; lose something without 
knowing it, ze. by a purely intellectual oversight. 

40. ‘Violence done to them’ by a present pain. The 
phenomena of self-sophistication seem to be referred to 
below, so here we are to think of actual yielding to pain in 
contradiction to principle. We should not call this a change 
of opinion, and it is noteworthy that Plato distinguishes it 
from the strictly intellectual process mentioned above. At the 
same time, it certainly involves an intellectual change, an 
alteration of attention. 

413C 43. ‘Bewitched’ by pleasure (present and expected seem 
not to be distinguished) or expectation of evil. This is the 
field of self-deception, which ‘changes opinion’ for the most 
part in its concrete form, not persuading us that ‘drinking is 
good’ but that ‘the act proposed is not drinking in the objec- 
tionable sense.’ Plato and Aristotle so far retain the essence 
of the Socratic view that they consider all action to aim at 
something taken to be good, and therefore all immorality 
to include an element of intellectual error. 

DandE 112, 23. ‘Objects of terror,’ ‘scenes of pleasure.’ Hints like 
these help us to escape from the false air of negation which 
surrounds Plato’s portrayal of life, merely owing to our in- 
capacity to fill up his abstract scheme. His public, of course, 
had before them the glowing picture of the Greek world, of 
which all that was not banished would be understood to sur- 
vive. Mr. Pater has well insisted on this point. The young 
men are to see something of life, both in war and adventure, 
and in society, and their career will be made or marred by 
their bearing under these conditions. 

E 32. ‘Most useful to themselves and the state,’ the fourth 
mention of this principle or moral content in these two pages. 
For ‘state’ again read ‘ commonwealth.’ 

414A 34. ‘Being put to the proof as a child, a youth, and a man.’ 
This is the general rule of life in all societies, and there is no 
reason for giving it a highly artificial form in our interpreta- 
tion of Plato, by thinking of any conventional probation or 


BOOK If. 121 


fantastic rules of an’ order. It was held essential to good 
administration in a Greek state that its numbers should admit 
of all citizens knowing each other by reputation ; and a man’s 
‘record’ would determine his advancement with them, just as, 
to a great degree, with ourselves. 

II3. 1. ‘Give to these the name of perfect guardians.’ 414 B 
Apparently at the age of fifty. Compare 268. 540, and see 
note on IIO. 23, 412 C above. 

16. ‘A Pheenician story,’ ‘a miner’s story’: Mr. Pater. C 

34. ‘The earth their real mother.’ The Athenians thought E 
themselves indigenous, sprung from earth-born parents. 

1x4. 8. ‘ You are all related to one another,’ and therefore 415 A- 
have the same general type of nature, and a workman’s child 
may turn out a great general or statesman. This passage 
seems to assume unity of race, and to exclude any foreign 
slave-element. 

16. ‘If a child be born in their class,’ etc. A notable 
passage. Here again compare note IIO. 9, 412 A; we should 
not make much of the mechanical or authoritative mode of 
selection, or the apparent absence of educational means for 
enabling a workman’s child to show its powers. If it were 
worth while to speculate, the educational system could easily 
be eonceived as extending to all in proportion to their 
capacity, and as forming the engine of selection. Compare 
IIO. 23, 412 C, and Zimaeus, 1g A (in the brief abstract of the 
Republic with which the latter dialogue begins). ‘And you 
remember how we said that the children of the good parents 
were to be educated, and the children of the bad secretly dis- 
persed among the inferior citizens ; and while they were all 
growing up the rulers were to be on the lookout, and to bring 
up from below in their turn those who were worthy, and 
those among themselves who were unworthy were to take the 
place of those who came up?’ (Jowett). It is enough, how- 
ever, that Plato states the principle. It has been well re- 
marked that even in our democratic days there is a selection 
by experts crowning that by the popular vote. The latter 


122 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


can give a man his chance, but it can hardly maintain him 
-in leading circles if he is found wanting by his fellows there. 

415 D 2g. ‘But I think their sons and the next generation.’ A 
two-edged jest. First, in the context of a legend which more 
or less caricatures the current Athenian belief (the word 
rendered ‘children of the soil,’ literally, ‘earth-born,’ below, 
was an epithet of Erechtheus, the mythical ancestor of the 
Athenians. See Herodotus, vill. 55), it implies Plato’s usual 
humorous attitude towards religious mythology, and secondly 
it points to the real importance of ideas which may be con- 
veyed by education even in admittedly mythical shape. Com- 
pare the adoption of a new set of eponymous heroes (=patron 
saints) by the Athenian people for the ‘demes’ or territorial 
units instituted by Kleisthenes; and again, think of the in- 
fluence of antiquity and tradition in any locality upon resi- 
dents whose connection with the place is, in fact, quite 
recent. 

E II5. 2, 4,7. ‘Sleeping places’ (literally, ‘beds’; Jowett, 
‘ dwellings,’ which seems to miss the point). ‘ Houses.’ Note 
the simplicity with which Plato leads up to the asceticism 
demanded of his ‘aristocracy.’ ‘They must have somewhere 
to sleep, and must even be protected from the weather!’ 
‘Houses, you mean.’ ‘ Why, no, not just what you call houses, 
ze. centres of money-making and expenditure.’ ‘Of moneyed 
men’ (9) should be rather ‘connected with money-making’ ; 
it is explained by 116. 3, 416 D ‘storehouse’; ‘strong-room’ 
or ‘safe’ as we might say. Spartan experience showed 
according to Aristotle that avarice and extravagance could not 
be rooted out as long as the household was uncontrolled. 
Newman, Introduction to Poditics, 176. 

416B 28. ‘It is not worth while’; better Jowett, ‘I cannot be so 
confident.’ ‘There is already a reserve as to the adequacy 
of the first education. 

D_ 116. 3. ‘A dwelling or storehouse’: compare for the full 
significance of this 275. 32, 548 a, which evidently alludes to 
the experience of Sparta. 


BOOK IT. 123 


24 ‘Whenever they come to possess lands and houses and 417 A 
money.’ It is to such conceptions as this that Hegel’s com- 
ment applies, that Plato, so far from being too ideal, was in 
fact not ideal enough, because he did not find room for indi- 
viduality, which is an essential element of all that is rational. 
See Introduction, Section 1v. All this arrangement only refers 
to the soldiers and guardians. 


BOOK IV 


Sect. 38. Beginning of Book Iv.—120. 3, 422 A. 


The conditions imposed on warriors and rulers justified by a 
characteristic conception of the general happiness, and in some 
degree extended to other classes. 


420A I1I7. 22. ‘Let us suppose these to be included in the 
indictment.’ Plato’s readiness to heighten the objection is 
meant as a clue to the conception of happiness about to be 
propounded. He will not shirk the antithesis between indi- 
vidual enjoyment and the universal purpose, but, for the sake 
of argument, is quite willing to emphasise it. 

B 28 ff. ‘It would not surprise us if even this class—-whole state 
as happy as it can be made.’ He does not really think that 
opportunities for private enjoyment form happiness even for 
those who have them (compare note on IIQ. 11, 421 C), yet he 
does not rest his case on this, but on a conception of the general 
happiness, or, more strictly, of the happiness of the whole com- 
monwealth. Compare 118. 4 ff.,420c-z. The entire passage, 
especially the simile of the statue with the words immediately 
following it ‘attach to our guardians (such a happiness) as will,’ 
etc., should be compared with the connection between ‘ happi- 
ness,’ ‘work,’ and ‘ proper excellence’ at the close of Book1. A 
modern will object at once with Aristotle, Politics, ii. 5, ‘The 
city cannot be happy as a whole unless all or most, or at least 


some of its members, possess the happiness. For being happy 
124 


BOOK IV. 125 


is not like being an even number; the whole may be an even 
number when none of the parts are, but with happiness this is 
impossible. But if the guardians are not happy, who are?’ 
It is plain that Plato courts this objection and intends to deny 
that the happiness of the whole is an aggregate of the private 
enjoyments of its members, while at the same time he claims 
that by a necessary connection the happiness of the whole 
would zzvolve the greatest possible happiness of all the indi- 
viduals composing it. The ‘whole commonwealth’ is for him 
that in which the individual first becomes what he has it in 
him to be, and develops the capacity of satisfaction as a 
strictly human being; and therefore the happiness of this 
whole is the life thus constituted in which the parts preserve 
their relation to it, and is utterly different in kind from the 
aggregate happinesses of all the individuals composing it, so far 
as by an abstraction these can be considered merely as recipi- 
ents of private enjoyment. Such an aggregate Plato explicitly 
denies to be what he means by the happiness of the whole 
(118. 27, 420 E, ‘Give not such advice to us’), not merely 
because it is impossible, but because it contradicts the content 
—the station, work, or function—which alone expresses the 
individual’s nature in his membership of the whole. ‘ Happi- 
ness,’ therefore, or ‘ wellbeing,’ is here as in Aristotle a pro- 
blematic term, standing for the truly desirable end which is 
presupposed by current language, but whose real nature can 
only be ascertained by philosophic analysis. It is here 
practically equivalent to ‘the common good.’ 

118. 16. ‘Whether, by giving each part what properly 420 D 
belongs to it, we make the whole beautiful.’ A statue may 
be strictly speaking beautiful as a whole, but a city cannot 
strictly speaking be happy as a whole. See last note. Yet it 
is quite likely that in assenting to this antithesis we shall go 
further wrong than if we challenged it. Plato’s comparison 
points to the way in which lives enter into one another. Any 
recognised sore in a society may fairly be said to prevent the 
society as a whole from being happy, z.e. each person, so far . 


126 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


as he identifies himself with society, adopts this misery as his 
own. ‘There is nothing specially esthetic in the comparison 
of the statue—the subordination of part to whole is not 
confined to esthetic objects, though well exemplified by 
them. 
421B  I1IQ. 1. ‘Something which is not a state.’ Just as the part 
ceases to be a part if it loses its function (potter to be potter, 
ruler to be ruler, and the like), so the whole ceases to bea 
whole, the commonwealth therefore to be a commonwealth. 
Cc 8. ‘The best possible workmen at their own occupation’ ; 
as ‘artificers of freedom for their country,’ 88. 30, 395 C. 
to. ‘ Permitting each class to partake of as much happiness 
as the nature of the case allows to it.’ More lit., ‘as nature 
allows to it,’ z.e. primarily its own nature, as expressed in its 
capacity for citizen functions. Compare 327. 12, 587 A below, 
for this same fundamental notion of Plato and Aristotle, that 
the truest harmony permits what is the only sound satis- 
faction of the parts, applied to the three elements of the 
mind, as here to the three classes in the state to which 
they correspond. As the present passage shows, Plato would 
hardly pledge himself that in a true harmony each part gets 
the intensest pleasure of which it is capable, but only that 
it gets the most real or reliable satisfaction. The principle 
is that a part which is in contradiction with the whole is in 
contradiction with itself. If therefore we put the modern 
objection stated above in a higher form, viz., ‘Is the whole 
system liberally enough conceived, z.e. so as to afford the 
best possible life to all its parts?’ this is a point of fact on 
which Aristotle would perhaps have decided against Plato 
(see Newman, Introduction to Politics, 427); but the truth 
about the relation in principle of the individual’s enjoy- 
ment to the common welfare would not be affected by the 
answer. 
17. ‘The other craftsmen.’ ‘Both in Aristotle’s state and 
in Plato’s the motives which play so large a part in the state 
as we know it are to lose their power. The quest of wealth 


BOOK IV. 127 


is permitted only to the third class in Plato’s state, and even 
in their case only within certain limits. Aristotle hopes to 
bring all his citizens to see that wealth is but a means to 
higher things, and to abandon its unlimited and irrational 
pursuit.’ Newman, Introduction to Politics, 429. 

22. ‘A potter after he has grown rich. This seems to 421 D 
imply that money-making is the only conceivable aim of 
industry. The apparent crudeness of Plato’s view comes 
here, as frequently, from his simple attention to the broad 
facts, neglecting all refinements and reservations. Wealthy 
men may be devoted students or great artists, or industrial 
leaders or inventors, but on the whole if we look at classes of 
men, wealth distracts people from a vocation. Plato antici- 
pates the New Testament saying about those ‘who have 
riches.’ We lose his perspective unless we bear in mind that 
his is not the vulgar argument for restricting wealth to an 
‘upper’ class. His ‘upper’ class is propertyless. His lower 
class alone are allowed some wealth, we may say, ‘because of 
the hardness of their hearts,’ which helps to explain his view. 
Even they are not to be allowed enough to distract them. 

120. 1. ‘Wealth, I replied, and poverty’; the relation of 422 A 
means to end, or instruments to function, is the key to the 
attitude of Plato and Aristotle on this question throughout. 


120. 4, 422 A—I27. 6, 427. Sect. 39. 


Strength of the state dependent on its unity, which rests finally 
on the ‘music’ or sense of law in which the citizens are nur- 
tured, and without which legislative reform is mere polttical 
valetudinarianism. 


120. 37. ‘No use of gold and silver,’ a reminiscence of D 
Sparta: compare also close of Book 11. Sparta, though she 
had a valuable territory, undoubtedly escaped much hostility 
through her lack of commercial interests, which were the 
secret both of the greatness of imperial Athens and of the 
feuds which led to her fall. The Spartans had always been 


422 E 


423 A 


128 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


regarded as trained soldiers, against whom all others were 
mere amateurs. Plato is anxious to master the secret of a 
city’s strength both within and without. See Pater, Plato and 
Platonism, 218. 

I2I. 8. ‘Some grander name,’ more literally, ‘by some 
bigger name.’ 

11, ‘The city of the poor.’ Such language suggests fo us 
a class either destitute or inadequately maintained, and no 
doubt there was such a class at Athens in the fourth century 
B.C., though not all the 12,000 deported in 322 B.c. belonged 
to it. See Grote, chapter 95. The question of pauperism 
attracted Aristotle’s attention (Fo/ttics, i. 5) and clearly was 
to some extent before Plato’s mind (compare 285-6. 555 E 
below); but the present passage does not wecessarily imply 
anything beyond the conflicting claims of a richer and poorer 
class, which were felt at Athens throughout the fifth century 
and exist to some extent under every system. 

21. ‘No more than a thousand men.’ Aristotle, Politics, 
ii. 6, of the Spartans at Leuctra ‘there were not 1000 of them ; 
the city did not survive a single blow but perished for want 
of men.’ Leuctra was in 371 B.c., which seems too late to 
admit of an allusion to it in the Republic, but Aristotle’s 
remark. sounds very like a reference to this passage. Plato 
might have meant that with a proper system the Spartiate army 
(the number in question refers to pure Spartiates only ; there 
were ‘ Lacedeemonians’ as well), would have proved sufficient. 

22. ‘One city as large as that.’ This is the germ of the 
fine passage in Aristotle’s Podttics, iv. 7, 4: ‘For, like other 
things, a city has its function ; and so that which is able best 


_to discharge its function must be taken to be the greatest 


B 


(literally, biggest).’ 

27. ‘The best standard,’ literally, ‘limit,’ the same word which 
afterwards came to mean ‘ definition,’ or, again, ‘logical term.’ 
The limit is drawn from ‘the essential nature of the thing.’ 

32. ‘Grow without abandoning its unity’: compare New- 
man, Introduction to Aristotle’s Politics, 313, for a complete 


BOOK IV. 129 


discussion of this Greek idea of the proper size of a city, 
which strikingly illustrates the conception of the social organism 
as understood by the Greeks.. See Folitics, iv. 7, 4. ‘As 
an animal, a plant, or a machine has a limit of size (dependent 
on its properties), so, too, has a commonwealth.’ Aristotle’s 
limit is essentially the same as that here assigned, ‘ unity and 
self-sufficingness’ (‘sufficiency and unity,’ 40 below: com- 
pare above, 53. 369). Note that in Aristotle the application 
of this principle is explicitly determined, as implicitly in Plato, 
by the range of personal knowledge, sight, and hearing. This 
shows how even the greatest Greeks tended to naturalism. 
A nation is a spiritual or ideal object compared to the Greek 
city. In the Zaws, 737, Plato fixes on 5040 as the best 
number of citizen families. We must bear in mind, however, 
that a Greek ‘Polis’ was not a own. It was more like a 
Swiss Canton. It is the citizen body, not the territory, that 
has to be so small as to be all seen at once (like a work of 
art. Compare Aristotle’s Poetics, ch. 7). 

122. 4. ‘Send away any inferior child.’ Compare end of 423 C 
Book 1. There is as yet no allusion to the exposure - 
children, but this is no doubt implied, 168. 460 bglowe. i 
some mysterious and unknown hiding-place.’ 

12 and 13. ‘Not many men, but one’—‘not one city but D 
many cities.’ Each man’s ‘work’ is his essence relatively to 
the whole ; if he has two ‘works,’ that implies two ‘wholes,’ 
e.g. his trade, which Plato takes as his relation to the state, 
and his political or religious party. Plato does-not attach 
full weight to the idea, so familiar to us, that these distinct 
wholes within the state may be subordinate and instrumental 
to its purpose. Even in abolishing the family he only carries 
to a climax the intolerance of the Greek state towards minor 
organisations within itself. 

18. ‘The one great point.’ The ‘one thing needful’ is a E 
thorough nurture and education of character and_ intellect; 
it is a mistake to suppose that Plato advocates a hide-bound 
system of irreversible enactment. 

I 


130 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


424A 29. ‘Amongst friends everything is common property,’ 


C 


D., 


more lit., ‘Friends’ things are common.’ ‘Property’ is an 
insertion. to support a neuter plural. The proverb covers 
Aristotle’s proposal that property should be common ‘in use 
but wot in ownership’ (Politics, ii. 5). The discussion here 
anticipated is resumed in Book vy. 

32. ‘A sort of circular progress in its growth.’ Jowett, 
‘moves with accumulating force like a wheel.’ I do not feel 
sure what the comparison is. The ‘circle’ is meant in some 
way to suggest the opposite of a vicious circle. Good nurture 
makes good natures, and good natures transmit the qualities 
they have acquired as better natures to the next generation, 
when the process repeats itself at a higher level. Compare 
the corresponding process in evil on following page, and see 
note on numerical passage 273. 546. The difficulty is to see 
how either circle can be broken. Note that a progressive 
development of character, though within certain general types, 
is undoubtedly contemplated here, and that the transmission 
of acquired qualities is presupposed. 

123. 11. ‘Styles of music are never disturbed without 
affecting the most important political institutions.’ Music 
here in the modern sense (contrast 64. 376-7 above). ‘In- 
stitution’; ‘#omos’ means a strain or song as well as a law 
or ordinance; and Plato often has this double meaning in 
mind, (Compare ‘actual hymn’ (omos), 258. 1, 531 D 
below.) We are “accustomed to regard all that takes 
place, music, painting, dress, amusements, as symptomatic of 
social change, but the exclusive causal action assigned to 
musical fashions is strange to us. It was not a_ highly 
developed but a crude musical art, operating on a very 
sensitive people in small societies, where moral causes 
reacted quickly and directly, that could be thus spoken of. 
Perhaps, too, Plato hardly distinguishes the symptomatic 
from the causal connection, or we may distinguish them too 
sharply. 

18. ‘It is here that lawlessness’ easily creeps in unawares.’ 


—= 


BOOK IV. ae 131 


As to the phenomena Plato does not differ widely from the 
great assailant of Socrates, Aristophanes, who attacks what he 
considered the decadent taste of his day in music and poetry. 
(See Clouds, 966, 1361.) As Mr. Nettleship has remarked, | 
there seems no great fear of innovation in our educational 
system, at least so far as the ‘higher’ education is concerned ; 
our difficulty has been rather to get it moved at all. Never- 
theless, about all education, especially about our immense 
primary system, Plato’s ideas go to the root. What incalculable 
social evil is owing to the ‘lawlessness’ engendered by want 
of training after school age and before the full industrial age 
in town children! And an education that is out of date may 
foster ‘lawlessness’ by its impotence, no less than one that 
is too novel by its audacity. 

23. ‘Manners and customs,’ rather ‘character and external 
behaviour.’ The Greeks were very ready to attach political 
meaning to innovations in personal and social details. Com- 
pare the phrase ‘wore his hair long with a view to tyranny,’ 
z.e. became ostentatious and presumptuous as one who aims 
at despotism, Herodotus, v. 71 ; and note the very instructive 
passages (Thucydides, vi. 16 and 28)-on ‘the undemocratic 
unlawfulness’ of Alcibiades’ way of life, meaning his dress 
and other extravagances, which were taken to point to ‘a 
desire of making himself a despot.’ With us, too, all these 
things are significant, but rather as social symptoms than as 
direct political influences. This paragraph might be taken 
as a text for Books viii. and Ix. 

38. ‘Loyalty,’ literally, ‘lawfulness,’ ‘ Eunomia,’ the term 425 AL 
employed by Herodotus, i. 65, for the reform of Lycurgus at 
Sparta, and the title of a poem of Tyrtaeus; opposed to 
‘ Paranomia’ ‘ unlawfulness,’ by which Thucydides, 7. ¢., char- 
acterises Alcibiades’ behaviour. It sums up the result of a 
‘musical education.’ (See above, 98. 402-3.) 

124. 42. ‘Not worth while to give directions on these p 
points.’ This breathes a free and organic spirit for which 
Plato is not always given credit. For some of the details of 


132 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


manners mentioned above, ¢g. silence in presence of elders, 
compare Aristophanes’ Clouds, 963 and 993. 
25E 125. 8. ‘As those do who are in bad health.’ Plato returns 
to the subject of valetudinarianism to bring out its evils in 
the social organism. 
426 A 20. ‘Who tells them the truth,’ which the clever ‘sons of 
Asclepius’ are too polite to do, 102. 405-6 above. 

B 32. ‘When, having a bad form of government, they fore- 
warn their citizens—under pain of death,’ an enactment 
reported from more than one Greek state for either a general 
or particular purpose. The point of view from which Plato 
here criticises the nostrums of public valetudinarianism is char- 
acteristic of his tendency to bring extremes together. His 
objection is that average legislation changes too little, not 
that it changes too much. The fault is in going on with a 
vicious constitution instead of remodelling it throughout. 
(See following note.) 

427A 126. 23. ‘The genuine legislator.’ We cannot infer from 
Plato’s attitude to the complex legislation of an artificial society 
that he held the matters touched on just above to be no fit 
subjects for legislative regulation. Sometimes he leaned to such 
a suggestion. (See the notion of refusing to enforce contracts, 
286. 556 A below.) But the rest of the present passage may 
be interpreted as contemplating some elasticity or develop- 
ment in minor regulations as opposed to a complete prescription 
of life by the original legislator, such as was ascribed to Solon 
or Lycurgus. 

B 41. ‘Subjects which we do not understand ourselves.’ 
Perhaps a touch of the irony which may accompany a scrupulous 
respect for tradition. But it was the custom to consult the 
Delphic oracle about the foundation of cities. 

C 127. 4. ‘Expositor to all men.’ The ‘all men’ strikes me 
as emphatic, instead of ‘all Hellenes,’ which we might have 
expected. Of course non-Hellenes, e.g. the Asiatic kings, did 
consult the oracle. 


BOOK IV. 133 


127. 7, 427 D—I37. 18, 435 A. 
The cardinal virlues considered as qualities of a society. 


127. 24. ‘Our state, being rightly organised, is a perfectly 
good state.’ ‘Organised,’ more lit., ‘settled, the word used 
for establishing a new town or colony. ‘Organised’ is a term 
that expresses a Greek conception in its fullest modern form, 
but worn out by popular use. Plato had no such word at 
command, and if he had, would not use it as a mere counter 
of current speech. 

‘Perfectly good state.’ Opinions might differ as to the 
nature of ‘goodness’ in a society. Plato assumes here that 
it involves the qualities of a moral being. 

27. ‘Wise and brave and temperate and just.’ The four 
cardinal virtues, here, for all we know, put together for the 
first time. There is no philosophical advantage in drawing 
out a table of virtues at great length; the modes of right 
behaviour are as infinite as the relations of life, and the 
qualities displayed in them can be distinguished or run 
together almost at will. Subject to this reservation, the 
absence of the servile virtues, such as humility, is noticeable. 
But temperance or justice can easily be made to cover them. 
For a comparison of Greek and Christian moral ideas see 
Green, Prolegomena to Z7¢hics, book iii. c. 5. 

30. ‘Some of these qualities,’ ‘undiscovered qualities.’ 
‘Qualities’ here, and ‘things’ in the next paragraph, are 
alike inserted by the translators to go with the neuter plural 
pronoun or article. ‘Qualities’ seems more suitable than 
‘things.’ 

35- ‘Contained in any subject’; ‘subject’ is filled in, to 
fit the neuter pronoun ‘any.’ ‘Things’ (see previous note) 
is not a suitable term to be used in this description of a 
‘method of residues,’ because there is something awkward 
in comparing the aspects of a moral system to the parts of 
a whole composed of four things (=objects in space and 
time). ‘Properties,’ or ‘ relations,’ would be a more intelligible 


Sect. 40. 
427 E 


428 A 


134 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


rendering. Plato’s account no doubt presupposes that the 
elements in question are clearly and correctly distinguished, 
and together exhaust a certain whole. Mill’s account also 
presupposes this, and an abstract scheme of the argument 
can hardly be given otherwise. 

128. 6. ‘A paradoxical fact presents itself,’ viz., the small 
number of persons in whom that wisdom exists, in virtue of 
which the whole city is counted wise. 

428 C 24. ‘How vessels of wood may best be made’; better, 
‘wooden implements,’ and in next paragraph, ‘ brasswork.’ 
There is a side of industrial knowledge which is connected 
with the statesman’s science, as we now recognise. And 
indeed Plato has above pointed out, I19, 421, that the science 
of industrial conditions enters into the science of government. 
That this should be so follows strictly from his regarding the 
classes as organs of the whole. The governmental science, 
therefore, though not described in the concrete, is implied to 
be highly concrete. 

35. ‘Any kind of knowledge—which takes measures on 
behalf of the state as a whole.’ The ideas of all members of 
the social organism must in fact embody their private relation 
to the social whole, for this relation expresses itself in their 
function; but those who have to deliberate on behalf of 
society as a unit, must bring to bear on every problem a com- 
plete or concrete idea of the social whole, in which idea 
society becomes, as it were, self-conscious through the minds 
of its members. Their idea of their function, therefore, in- 
volves a completely co-ordinated notion of the social end; 
that of soldiers or craftsmen, we must suppose, is purely 
relative to their limited duties. The difference between the 
‘carpenter’s’ and the ‘ guardian’s’ ideas is ultimately one of 
degree, and the connection between them is an interesting 
problem, which in modern times has become acute. The 
carpenter must have some idea of the whole to which his 
‘function’ puts him in relation ; in Plato’s theory the states- 
man’s conception should apparently include all that, in the 


BOOK IV. : 135 


carpenter’s idea, concerns the general scheme of society. 
We do not now rely, as Plato proposed to do, mainly on the 
completeness of the statesman’s knowledge, but rather on a 
logic of fact and community of sentiment by which the ideas 
of all classes work out their joint result. For Plato, then, 
society is wise only in respect of that knowledge in which it is 
explicitly reflected as a whole. 

42. ‘Our protective science,’ or ‘the science belonging to 428 D 
our guardians’; no doubt the adjective is used in a double 
sense. 

129. 13. ‘The knowledge residing in its smallest class or E 
section—which entitles a state to be called wise as a whole.’ 
This is the ‘paradoxical fact’ referred to a page above. 
Three elements are perhaps co-operating in the urgency with 
which Plato insists on this antithesis. First there is a convic- 
tion that comprehensive minds are rare (compare the account 
of the philosophical nature in Books vi. and vi.). And so, no 
doubt, under any system, they are and will be. Secondly, 
there is a desire to make clear the notion of a part or organ 
which stands for the whole in a certain relation, although, as 
one among many organs, it is presumably but a small portion 
of the entire bulk, like the eye in the body. Thirdly, there 
is a further degree of the second conception, according to 
which more’ especially the intellectual organ, in which the 
whole is ideally presented as the whole, is regarded as ‘ small,’ 
owing to its high measure of unity, contrasted with the exten- 

. sion or dispersion characteristic of parts external to, or un- . 
reconciled with, one another. So the human element in the 
triple monster (Book 1x. end), though naturally sovereign, is 
much the smallest. 

27. ‘The quality of courage,’ more lit., ‘manliness.’ 429 
Having explained in dealing with Intelligence the conception 
of an organ or part which represents the whole in one relation, 
Plato spends less pains on this side of the subject in treating 
of Fortitude. The soldier class is the organ of necessary 
self-assertion in society, as the ‘spirit’ is in the individual. 


136 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


What was said above of the carpenter’s idea of his relation to 
the whole applies in a much higher degree to Plato’s soldiery, 
who form the material out of which the guardians are selected. 
The personal courage of other citizens, not called upon to 
fight, does not affect the degree of bravery which society 
displays through its fighting organ. Plato would of course be 
the first to admit that the temper of the fighting class and 
that of the whole society must react on each other. But the 
fighting class is that, as he’says just below, in which the mind 
of the society in relation to danger, the psychological element 
of ‘spirit,’ is especially exhibited, and by this test of its train- 
ing and temper the social whole must submit to be judged, so 
far as courage is concerned. 

429C 130. 3. ‘A kind of safe-keeping.’ (See III. 412 £ above, 
and notes.) 

D_ 14. ‘ You know that dyers’ (see reference in previous note). 
In this simile of the dye Plato recurs to his account of the 
guardians’ temper apparently in order to provide against the 
impression which his intellectual or Socratic phraseology 
might produce. ‘The education, he insists in the spirit of 97. 
401 E, is to be one long preparation of the whole character, 
so that when, in early manhood, the citizen approaches the 
duties imposed upon him by law (compare 130. 430 A below, 
with 97 Zc.) they may come to him as the inevitable comple- 
ment of his second nature, and so far from being skin deep, 
may find every fibre of his being receptive to the social spirit. 
The positive content of this ‘opinion,’ which the guardian 
class is to ‘preserve,’ is reiterated several times on III. 
412 E ff., ‘that they are to do what is best for the social 
whole.’ Here for the soldiers it is described as ‘a right and 
lawful opinion regarding what is and what is not to be feared,’ 
but really covers resistance not only to fear and pain, but to 
pleasure and desire (37, 430 a, B), thus pointing forward to 
the treatment of courage in the Zaws, i. 635. 

430 B 44. ‘When the right opinion—as by beasts and slaves.’ 
He may have in mind the example of the dog, 63. 376 above. 
We must bear in mind that ‘opinion’ includes for Plato all 


BOOK IV. 137 


that ‘seems.’ The dog or slave has a right impression or 
association, as far as it goes, when he. fights for his master, 
but it is not according to law, because it has not been moulded 
by training in the social spirit, and may, for instance, turn to 
the defence of what should be put down. 

I3I. 6. ‘The courage of citizens’ implied not to be the 
highest, as in Aristotle’s Ethics, iii. 7 (see Stewart’s note). IC 
do not think Plato is distinguishing it merely from the lower 
form he has mentioned ; he seems also to anticipate a deeper 
analysis, probably referring to the courage of the philosopher 
which arises from a sense of the littleness of individual life, 
in a mind which sees the world as a whole. (Compare 200. 
486 a below.) But yet Plato’s description of citizen courage 
is substantially at one with Aristotle’s account of the highest 
kind ; both, as Mr. Stewart says, ‘are habits acquired by the 
citizen under the influence of laws.’ Aristotle’s ‘citizen’ 
courage is a grade lower, aiming at good repute and the like. 

14. ‘Temperance’; the Greek word ‘Sdphrosuné’ means, 
more literally, ‘soundness of mind,’ or perhaps ‘ keeping your D 
senses.’ Plato has given a preliminary definition of this 
moral excellence, 80. 23, 389 D above (where Davies and 
Vaughan rendered ‘ sobriety’). Its main features, he there 
says, are obedience to superiors and control of self, the latter 
specially as regards sensual pleasures. It is the characteristic 
virtue of the Greeks, the main excellence of the citizens in 
time of peace, because of their strong sense of measure, com- 
bined with an equally strong capacity for excess. See 96. 21, 
401 A above, on the duty of art to express this quality, there 
rendered by Davies and Vaughan ‘sober minded.’ In Greek 
art of the great time no characteristic is more striking than 
this. 

az$ Temperance has more the appearance of a concord or E 
harmony’; 2.e. it is a quality not only of the whole, but 27. a// 
of tt. (See 133. 431 E below.) 

31. ‘Temperance is, I imagine’; an appeal to the current 
meaning of the term, as connoting individual character. ‘ Order 
and mastery’ or continence. 


431A 


B 


138° COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


34. ‘Master of himself,’ more literally, ‘superior to,’ or 
‘ stronger than,’ himself. 

35. ‘In which we may trace a print’ ; popular expressions 
about temperance, which give us a clue to its nature. 

38. ‘The expression “ master of himself” a ridiculous one’ ; 
with this Plato begins the subject of conflict in the soul, 
which is developed at greater length in the remainder of the 
book. If ‘he’ is ‘ master of himself,’ then, formally speaking, 
‘himself’ must be slave of ‘him.’ So that if ‘Ze’ is ‘ himself,’ 
he is at once master and slave, or stronger and weaker. 

132. 3. ‘In the man himself, that is, in his soul.’ The 
Greek seems to show a special guardedness ; more lit., ‘In 
the man himself, “at,” or “near,” or “ concerned with,” his 
soul’ (compare below, 358. 611 E£). Plato does not here wish 
to commit himself about the relation of the evil principle to 
the essential soul. 

4. ‘A good principle and a bad’; ‘ principle’ is insertion 
with neuter adjective, literally, ‘a better and a worse.’ The 
implied argument is that there must be some reason why 
popular usage does not, as would be formally correct, treat 
‘master of self’ and ‘slave of self’ as descriptions of che 
same state. ‘The reason is found by supposing that the ‘he,’ 
par excellence, is always the same element—a true, or inner, or 
better self—while the ‘himself’ is always, in fact, a relative 
not-self, something in the mass of our personality against 
which we have habitually to assert our ‘true’ self, and which, 
even if victorious, does not thereby become our true self, but 
tends to disintegrate our being. It is, of course, very naive 
psychology to take the good and bad self as coincident with 
natural elements in the mind. Plato is paving the way to 
treating the philosophic element as the good principle. In 
the first education it has no such pre-eminent place. 

8. ‘ Evil ¢raining’ ; better, ‘nurture.’ 

g. ‘Smaller force’ and ‘superior numbers’ (better, ‘ bulk ’ 
or ‘ volume’): compare note on 129. 13, 428 E above. 

12. ‘Slave of self, literally, ‘inferior to,’ or ‘ weaker than,’ 


BOOK IV. 139 


self. Ido not think that the phrase was common in Greek 
in precisely this form ; with a genitive of the thing than which 
the man was ‘ weaker’ it was very common, and might be 
rendered by ‘cannot resist,’ ¢.g. love, a bribe, a joke, or 
appetite of any kind. Perhaps Plato is summing. up these 
factors of a bad self in the ‘self’ which he substitutes for 
them in the formula. 

‘Dissolute’ ; the Greek term is ‘akolastos,’ which Aristotle 
made technical for the radically and habitually ‘intemperate ’ 
person, ‘ profligate’ (Peters), as opposed to the ‘ incontinent’ 
‘akratés,’ whose will is weak. 

16. ‘It may fairly be called master of itself.’ He returns 
to the commonwealth, applying to it his analysis of current 
moral judgment. 

18. ‘Governs the bad.’ The nature of the bad has not yet 
been explained, further than that it is large in quantity, and 
opposed to the good. ‘Variety’ has been assumed as its 
character throughout the education. 

21. ‘Those desires, and pleasures, and pains, which are 431 C 
many and various.’ The psychological species which has the 
character (quantity and variety). distinctive of the bad is pre- 
dominant in a class of persons which forms the bulk of the 
commonwealth (compare QI. 397 above), whereas (following 
paragraph) the tolerable part of the same psychological species 
is found in a small class only. Hence (‘ Do you not see that,’ 
etc.) this psychological relation (of a bulky bad and a small 
good) is embodied in the structure of the city, where a small 
class with good moral natures rules a large class with inferior 
ones. It is important to notice that Plato here concedes dis- 
ciplined desires as a necessary element to good men. This 
makes it impossible to say consistently that desire as such is 
the bad self, and suggests an analogous treatment of the 
opposition between reason and desire in the individual: mind, 
viz., that the disciplined desires rule the undisciplined. 

41. ‘May we not then call it temperate on all these D 
accounts?’ Because in it the good rules the bad, and the 


140 COMPANION TO PLA TOS REPUBLIC 


small or concentrated: embodiment of unity controls the 
extended variety. 

133. 1. ‘In which the governors and governed are ‘ unani- 
mous,’ more literally, ‘In which the same opinion (or ‘ seem- 
ing’ or ‘impression ’) is in rulers and ruled on the question,’ 
etc. It cannot be too much insisted on that it is the principle 
of Plato’s state fully to satisfy the nature of all its members. 
The weakest ‘seeming’ or ‘impression’ which does duty for 
reason in a child or uneducated person is, on the whole, to 
find itself at peace in a system which evokes its full capacity. 

431 E 6. ‘In which the two classes of citizens.’ Note the division 
for this purpose into two classes only. He means that taking 
society strictly as a whole, its reason and desire are both 
required to constitute temperance. This virtue is therefore in 
both classes together, not in each. In a further sense, how- 
ever, it is in each class separately, because it is conditioned by 

‘ the presence of doth the essential elements in some degree 
within every individual. 

ro. ‘When we divined just now—a kind of harmony’: com- 
pare 131. 430 E. The distinction is not really between a 
harmony of parts and the act of a single part, but between 
a general and limited harmony. Both wisdom and courage 
depend on the harmony between the action of an organ, and 
the law prescribed by the nature of the whole. This is 
obscured in the case of the rulers, who prescribe the law to 
themselves, but is clear in the case of ‘the soldiers, whose 
courage is the retention of an opinion dictated by the rulers, 
see I30. 429 D note. The difference is that a// classes are 
social organs of temperance and justice, while the courage of 
non-soldiers or wisdom of non-rulers would not be credited to 
the social whole. 

432A 16. ‘In literal diapason,’ ‘dia pasion,’ ‘through all,’ a term 
of Greek music. Jowett renders, ‘Which runs through all the 
notes of the scale.’ 

18. ‘Whether you measure by.’ Whatever standards 
you judge the claims of classes by, temperance or sound- 


BOOK IV. 141 


mindedness in a society consists in the recognition, by every 
class, of a right in the governors to govern, and a duty in 
the governed to obey, which are, in other words, a duty in 
the governors to govern, and a right in the governed to 
be governed. This principle is unchanged if, according to 
Aristotle’s definition, the citizen is one who takes it in turn 
to govern and to be governed. 

22. ‘A concord between the naturally better elements’ or 
perhaps ‘between better and worse, according to their natural 
relations.’ This definition returns to the idea of self-mastery, 
but expands and explains it by postulating a right to rule on 
the part of that element which stands for law and unity. ‘He’ 
is master of self when this rules, slave of self when it does not, 
and sound-minded or temperate when the ‘ worse’ element 
has been moulded so as to obey the ‘ better’ without reluc- 
tance. It should be noted that the terms ‘ worse’ and ‘better’ 
(‘cheiron’ and ‘ameinon’) are here acquiring their distinctively - 
moral meaning, in virtue of their relations to the whole. In 
ordinary Greek they may refer to many standards, as Plato 
seems to recognise in the preceding sentence. 

26. ‘ Three out of the four principles,’ literally, ‘ Three out 432 B 
of the four.’ See 127. 35, 428 A and note. 

27. ‘ That remaining principle,’ literally, ‘form’ or ‘species,’ 
the same word ‘ Eidos’ which is often rendered ‘idea’; there 
is no reason prima facie for excluding: the current use in 
passages like this from consideration, when we inquire how 
Plato actually regarded the ‘forms.’ To isolate all texts which 
seem to have a mythical sense, and say that Plato’s doctrine 
must be determined by them alone, is a mutilation of the 
data by which the hypothesis should be tested. This word 
‘form’ is quite an everyday term with him, in reference to a 
type or sort of objects. Compare, e.g. 192. 25,477C: ‘If you 
happen to understand the special conception,’ etc., z.e. simply, 
‘If you understand what sort (or ‘ form’) I am referring to.’ 

134. 14. ‘Why, my good sir, it appears’: compare with this D 
paragraph 254. 20, 529 A below, and note, on the metaphor 


142 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


which ranks the world of science above the world of sense. 
The significance of these two passages is not lessened by their 
humour, which is in Plato often a sign of deep earnestness. 
The well-meaning popular moralist, with his abstractions, and 
his ideals, is like a man staring about the room in search of 
something which he is holding in his hands. Many great 
religions and great philosophers have combated this false 
idealism, which continues to be ascribed to them as to Plato. 
Compare Hegel, ‘With such empty and other-world stuff 
philosophy has nothing to do. What philosophy has to do 
with is always something concrete and in the highest sense 
present.’—Hegel’s Logic, Wallace’s translation, second edition, 
p. 175. The story of Naaman the Syrian is a beautiful 
apologue to the same effect, and it is needless to point out a 
kindred spirit in the New Testament. Note the strength of 
Plato’s expression. Looking to some remote point, some far- 
fetched conception, for the nature of morality, instead of 
analysing the given relations of life, was not only a mistake, 
but was a tendency which caused our mistake. 

433 A 29. ‘We laid down as a universal rule of action.’ See 55. 
370 B. The rule was founded on the very nature of man. 

31. ‘Some modification of it,’ literally, ‘some form of it’ 
(Eidos). See note 133. 27. And for full answer to the ques- 
tion ‘What form of it is the essence of justice?’ see 149. 443 
below, ‘And so there really was, Glaucon,’ etc. 

33- ‘ Every individual ought to have some one occupation,’ 
etc., more literally, ‘ that each one ought to practise some one 
of the (businesses) connected with the social whole (Pods), to 
which his nature was most suited.’ Compare carefully the 
closing argument of Book 1. 36. 352 ff., which paved the way 
for this idea. ; 

37. ‘We have often heard people say.’ Plato appeals to 
current morality in support of his principle. ‘To mind one’s 
own business,’ etc., more literally ‘To do one’s own (things) 
and not to be many-businessed.’ 

B41. ‘To do one’s own’ (things) ; the famous definition of 


BOOK IV. 143 


‘justice.’ Note that it is a positive idea, and has not the same 
implication as our phrase ‘mind your own business.’ The 
content, the determination what is ‘our own,’ rests entirely on 
the idea of nature and function—the development of man’s 
nature in a system of functions. This is the inherent 
necessity by which the dialogue on Justice turns into a 
dialogue on Society. It does not follow that the social system 
is capable of being an exhaustive expression of man’s nature. 

43. ‘Whence I infer this.’ There seem to be three reasons 
adduced ; frst, that the required remainder, which by the 
hypothesis is justice, ought to be found in something which 
(like the principle of division of labour resting on natural 
function) accounts for both the evolution and the co-existence 
of the other excellences (135. 1-8, 433 A-B), secondly, that the 
principle in question may fairly be called an excellence or 
virtue, considering its great value in the life of the common- 
wealth (135. 10-32, 433 C-D), and ¢hirdly, that the avoidance 
of encroachment satisfies the current idea of justice in 
more ways than one (135. 35—136. 37, 433 E-434 C). 

135. 19. ‘The presence of that fourth principle in,’ etc: 433 D 
compare notes on 133. 1 and 10. The presence of the 
principle in every human being within the society must be 
construed, on the analogy of the other ‘ virtues,’ as involving 
in all cases some relative mental participation, by impression 
or trained feeling, in the law set by the nature of the whole. 
The emphasis with which the universality of this participation 
is here stated is suggestive in connection with 332. 8, 590D, 
which says that government is not to the detriment of the 
governed, but is meant to reinforce the divine within by the 
divine without. It is hard to say which has the deeper truth 
—the conception of Aristotle that none are genuine members 
of the commonwealth who cannot live its good life to the full, 
or that of Plato that every human being locally within it is 
a member, and the participation of all may be genuine 
though variously limited. Both views seem necessary to a 
complete understanding of society. 


144 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


29. ‘Rivals these qualities in promoting the virtue of a 
state,’ and therefore may fairly claim so high a title as that 
of justice or righteousness. (See above, note on 134. 43.) 

433 E35. ‘The adjudication of lawsuits.’ A third reason (see 
same note) for giving the name of Justice to the quality 
under discussion. It fills. the place of what is commonly 
meant by civil and criminal ‘justice.’ Compare the view pro- 
pounded by Cephalus in Book 1., which is here taken up into 
the higher argument. 

38. ‘What belongs to others,’ ‘What is his own.’ A meum 
and ¢uum, or alienum, is to be recognised in Plato’s common- 
wealth, but not quite on the ordinary basis. Such as it is, 
however, civil and criminal justice will aim at maintaining it. 
To ‘have’ cannot be altogether separated from ‘to do,’ and 
to bring out the connection with current ideas of the just, 
Plato suddenly insists on the former aspect. 

434A 136. 8 ff. ‘If a carpenter should undertake to execute the 
work of a shoemaker,’ etc. The essence of the offence is 
the confusion of functions. Property is regarded as instru- 
mental to function, and the protection of ‘property as inci- 
dental to the maintenance of proper function. For a similar 
verification by admitted results of ‘justice,’ compare 148. 
443 A. | 

B 1g. ‘ Their distinctions’ practically = ‘ offices,’ positions of 
moral or legal authority. The small significance of this term 
in the previous paragraph intentionally enhances its great 
significance in this, where it applies to a man with a mere 
workman’s or trader's mind, taking upon him the responsi- 
bilities of a teacher or statesman. We interpret Plato by 
contraries if we do not constantly remember his root-principle 
of adjustment between function and natural capacity. 

The authority of Plato’s ruler corresponds in some degree 
to the position of experts to-day. 

C 31. ‘ Evil-doing of the worst kind’ ; better, ‘ the infliction of 
the greatest possible harm on.’ A recurrence to a more 
general sense of justice and injustice as = goodness and 


BOOK IV. 145 


wickedness, to clinch his argument. ‘What hurts your own 
commonwealth in the highest degree may fairly be called 
wickedness.’ 

34. ‘Adherence to their own business.’ The three classes, 
as the principal types of capacity, are the basis of justice as 
a quality of society, and, strictly speaking, it would only be an 
interference of one cass or its members with the belongings 
of another class or its members that would make the society 
as such unjust. Thus if a shoemaker overreached a carpenter 
(or one Trade Society another) about the distribution of 
certain work, this would not, according to the strict definition, 
be a defect in justice as a quality of society. The example 
given above (136. 6, 434 A) shows, however, that this limitation 
is not to be rigidly construed, and that any distinctive 
capacity makes its owner an organ of society through which 
it is capable of justice or injustice. Compare also 135. 18, 
433D. These considerations are important with a view to 
clearly conceiving Plato’s distinction between the virtues of 
society and of the individual. It is plain that the distinction 
is merely one of degree so far as the action of the classes 
towards each other is contrasted with that of the individuals 
composing each class among themselves, and that the nearest 
approach to an absolute demarcation would be that between 
the whole external behaviour of individuals and (as we should 
say) their state of heart or will. So it seems to be taken, 
149. 9, 443 c. On the other hand the qualities above 
demanded from the classes are not restricted to external 
behaviour, but emphatically include states of the mind and 
feelings. Therefore, as the simile of the larger letters would 
suggest (53. 368 D), the distinction if question must be 
stated to some such effect as this: that society possesses the 
cardinal virtues primarily in so far as its main structure 
expresses, and realises by expression, certain types of char- 
acter in large bodies of individuals who form its organs for 
the main functions of its existence; but ultimately every 
individual is an organ of society for a certain function, and 

K 


146 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


his qualities and behaviour enter, though less visibly than 
that of the classes as such, into the moral quality of the 
social whole. His state of heart and will, however, though 
even they may enter into the goodness of society, yet when 
viewed apart from their external expression are qualities of 
the individual rather than of the commonwealth. This dis- 
tinction between inner and outer is plainly untenable if taken 
as more than an emphasis on one aspect of an indivisible 
whole. But it is another question whether all goodness can 
really be accounted for by social relations. 

35. ‘Industrious,’ literally, ‘money-making.’ ‘ Producers,’ 
14 above=‘money-makers.’ These terms are first applied 
to the trading and industrial class at this point of the dialogue. 
They serve to lead the way to the correlation of this class 
with the psychological element of desire, anticipated 132. 21, 


4318, which element is to Plato the spring of avarice as of 


Sect. 41. 


435A 


sensuality. (See below, 147. 9, 442 4, and 283. 2, 553.) 

137. 7. ‘A good city.’ It had passed through a stage of 
disease, and been purged again. (See 94. 33, 399 E.) 

‘This view, therefore,—let us now apply to the individual.’ 
‘The one (man)’ has, of course, none of the philosophical 
implications which attach to Individual as a philosophical - 
term. Plato’s method, though obscured by many quaint- 
nesses, and by immature psychology, is essentially sound. 
He begins by examining morality in its outward and visible 
signs, and then proceeds with the analysis by searching for 
correlative elements in the inward and spiritual state. 


137. 19, 435 A—138. 40, 436 B. 


The single human being is like the social whole in including 
the three psychological kinds ; but are they, in him, distinct? 


137. 21. ‘Unlike or like.’ The recognition of identity in 
difference was the great instrument by which Plato met the 
eristic difficulties of the day (see below, 159. 454). Likeness 
and identity are still a disputed problem. It might be urged 


ee 


a a 


BOOK IV. 147 


that in so far as the common name applies, the two things are 
identical, though because of their partial identity they may 
also be like. chs 

27. ‘Three classes of characters,’ more literally, ‘three 435 B 
classes (or ‘kinds’ ‘Gené’) of natures.’ We must bear in 
mind how the term ‘nature’ or ‘ what we are Jorn to be’ runs 
through Plato’s whole social theory, in antithesis to contract 
or convention. . 

33- ‘Supposing him to possess’; either clause might be 
consequent, but the argument seems rather to demand ‘if it 
is right to give him the same moral titles as the social whole, 
he must possess in himself the same (psychological) forms 
or kinds,’ z.e. ‘only supposing him to possess,’ etc, etc. 
‘Generic parts ’=‘ Eidé,’ ‘forms,’ the supposed technical term 
of the ‘idea’ doctrine. It here marks a slight transition in 
the argument from ‘ Gené,’ the kinds or classes in society. 

39. ‘An easy question’: ironical. The attainment of dis- C 
tinct conceptions about the soul is one of Plato’s most 
constant preoccupations, and he feels that to set on foot the 
science of psychology is no ‘trivial’ matter. 

138. 4. ‘We shall never attain to exact truth—by such 
methods.’ The ‘longer route’ seems to anticipate some form 
of metaphysical inquiry : compare opening words of Book V1., 
where the similar phrase refers to the theory of knowledge 
and its object developed at close of Book v. But he does 
not feel that at any point his own achievements satisfy the 
requirements which he would make : compare 223. 38, 5048, 
where the longer route is again referred to, with 259. 21, 
5334. ‘My dear Glaucon, you would not be able to follow 
me further.’ 

14. ‘Tell me then, I continued.’ As to the bare fact that E 
the same mental ‘forms and tempers’ (Eidé and Ethé) exist 
in the man as in society, all doubt is excluded, because the 
psychological character of a society zs that of the human 
beings who compose it, and you can plainly see the dominant 
temper of given societies to correspond with that observed in 


148 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


persons belonging to them. See note on grounds of transition 
to city, 53. 5,368pD. This passage is developed and modified 
by Aristotle, Politics, vii. 6, dealing only with spirit and in- 
telligence and their combination. ‘The love of riches’ is 
taken as an aspect of the appetitive element, see 136. 35, 
434c and note. Aristotle gives these latter races the benefit 
of the other side of this quality, classing them as intelligent 
and ingenious but of slavish character owing to lack of spirit. 

436A 30. ‘Are all our actions alike,’ etc. In order to maintain 
the parallel with society, it is essential that the three mental 
forms or kinds should be so far distinct that they can react on 
one another. If in every action the whole mental condition 
was reducible to some one ‘kind,’ there would be no inter- 
ference or reaction between them such as appeared to con- 
stitute the moral quality of society. We saw on 133. 10, 
431, that all the virtues of the social whole really implied 
such interaction of its elements. The distinctness is not to 
be taken as destroying the unity of the soul, any more than 
the distinctness of the social classes destroys the unity of 
society. ‘This would appear more clearly if the exact turn of 
the Greek were preserved in rendering the first sentence, as it 
is in the rest of the paragraph, from ‘ Do we learn’ onwards. 
It would run ‘ Do we perform each kind of. action (z.e. of the 
three kinds in question) with one and the same (organ of 
mind).’ There is no substantive in the place occupied by 
the translators’ term ‘faculty’ throughout the paragraph. 

37. ‘With the whole soul,’ which would assume that in 
desiring the soul was reduced:to mere desire, in anger to 
spirit, in learning to abstract intellect. For ‘perform these 
several operations’ read ‘ are we active in each of these ways?’ 
Of course a complete moral act may employ the whole soul— 
that will indeed prove to be Plato’s contention—but the 
question is whether the soul so employed is a system capable 
of internal conflict and subordination, or an atom in which no 
such relation can exist. The three following sections attempt 
to establish the distinctness of the three ‘forms’ in the soul. 


EE —————— 


BOOK IV. 149 


Note the preliminary designation of them here. The 
philosophic or refined element of Book 11. has become more 
definitely intellectual, ‘that with which we understand,’ the 
spirit remains as before, and the element of desire is for the 
first time reckoned as a positive third, though its correspon- 
dence to the money-making class—the class concerned with 
satisfactions which, taken by themselves, are material—has 
already been hinted at. 


138. 40, 436 B—I4O. 7, 4374. Sect. 42. 


The criterion of distinctness—law of Identity and Contradic- 
tion or Law of Causation. 


41. ‘Whether (the faculties) engaged are’ the same or 436 B 
different. To this and the following sections as to Books VI., 
vil., and x., there applies in a pre-eminent degree the beautiful 
saying of Mr. Pater (Plato and Platonism, p. 129.) ‘Now it 
is straight from Plato’s lips, as if in natural conversation, that 
the language came, in which the mind has ever since been 
discoursing with itself, concerning itself, in that inward dia- 
logue which is the ‘active principle’ of the dialectic method 
as an instrument for the attainment of truth. The whole 
passage should be read. 

139. 2. ‘The same thing cannot,’ more literally, ‘The same 
will not do or suffer opposites, at once, in the same respect 
and towards the same, so that if ever we find in them (in the 
working of our mental ‘kinds’) this taking place (viz., 
opposites occurring at once apparently in the same part, or 
towards the same outside object), we shall know that it was 
not the same but more than one (that were at work).’ 
‘Opposites,’ it would have been enough to say ‘differents’ ; 
differents become opposites by fulfilling the conditions of this 
definition, and in no other way. Blue and green become 
incompatible qualities if alleged to be thus related, and so do 
even blue and square. Differents become opposite if they 
claim the same relation to the same system. 

‘In the same respect’ or ‘aspect,’ practically=‘ part,’ 


150 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


illustrated by the case of the top below. Either this or ‘to- 
wards the same’ is ultimately needless ; exclusion of differents 
from the same relation to the same system is all that the 
definition requires, but Plato has in mind two interacting 
things, and so distinguishes ‘in the same aspect or part of A’ 
from ‘in relation to the same B.’ Plato is even superfluously 
anxious, in this, the first statement of the fundamental law of 
thought and existence, to show that identity does not exclude 
diversity, and therefore to express the nature not of an atom 
but of asystem. This is why he so scrupulously implies that 
‘the same’ may produce or receive opposite (different) effects, 
without detriment to its sameness, 7f they are conditioned 
by differences of aspect or reacting object. The words ‘do 
and suffer,’ ze. ‘produce or receive effects,’ together with 
the objective ring of the whole: passage, entitle us to interpret 
it also as a form of the Law of Causation, which is in fact 
merely a case of the Law of Identity or Contradiction. The 
principle ‘same cause and same relation, same effect’ with 
the converse ‘different effect, different cause or relation,’ is 
indeed more nearly akin to the argument of this place than 
are the ‘Formal Laws of Thought.’ In estimating the 
significance of such a thought as this, we have to face the 
difficult task of attributing full value to its extraordinarily 
pregnant form when contrasted with the trivial and abstract 
renderings which it has met with in later philosophy, without 
forgetting that what to us is pregnancy was in Plato to some 
extent zazveté, and that it is only by the immense differentia- 
tion of philosophy and exact science that we have attained 
the conceptions which lend such importance to this common 
germ of their method. 
436C zo, ‘Is it possible for the same thing,’ ‘in the same part of 
it,’ or ‘or in respect to the same’ (part or aspect of it). He 
drops out ‘towards the same object’ and _ illustrates ‘in 
respect to the same’ by two examples. The ‘object’ comes 
in again when he speaks of desire. 
D_ 18. ‘Part of the man is at rest.’ No substantive meaning 


BOOK IV. 3 151 


‘part’ is used, but simply a phrase roughly equivalent to ‘the 
one somewhat in him’ and ‘the other.’ The translation is 
perhaps the only one possible'in English, but it is well to 
realise that the words ‘ faculty,’ ‘ part,’ ‘ thing,’ ‘state,’ ‘ object,’ 
all through this argument, excepting once where ‘Eidé’ is 
used, do not represent different Greek substantives, but 
simply ‘the,’ ‘this,’ ‘that,’ ‘the same,’ ‘it,’ ‘they,’ and the 
like. The thought is therefore far less materialised and cut 
into heads than in the English rendering. It is plain from 
these examples that the distinctness to be inferred of the 
psychological ‘kinds’ is not to impair the unity of the soul ; 
see, too, the instance of the bowman, 143. 15, 439 B. 
28. ‘In respect of the same parts of them,’ ‘parts’ or 
‘aspects’ or ‘elements,’ as we please, Rs 
140. 3. ‘Let us assume,’ more literally, ‘put under,’ Ze. 
‘take as our basis,’ ‘sup-pose.’ The Greek verb is that from 
which the word ‘hypothesis’ is derived. See quotation from 
Pater on 138. 41 above. People are fond of asking whether 
principles of this kind come from experience or are prescribed 
_by the nature of the mind. Plato.would hardly have under- 
stood the question. He takes the law as a truth forced upon 
him by the analysis of the world as he knows it, and makes it 
the basis of his inquiry till something shall occur to modify or 
overthrow it. We must not push his language to mean that 
the principle is for him what we call ‘a mere hypothesis.’ 
That is a shade of meaning due to the immense development 
of ‘working hypothesis’ in modern science, which has given 
the term an implication not far removed from ‘fiction.’ 
Plato simply takes it as the best basis he can find by analysis 
and—his attitude to objections shows this—as a truth which 
he is inclined to think that clear conceptions will be able to 
sustain in every instance. He has no tendency to dissociate 
‘mind’ froin ‘experience.’ For the purpose of the present 
argument the Law of Contradiction (or of Causation) sup- 
plies the rule, ‘ Opposing dispositions towards the same object 
at the same time imply distinct psychological elements.’ 


Sect. 43. 


437 B 


¢ 


D 


152 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


140. 9, 437 B—143. 19, 439 B. 


The opposing dispositions towards the same object at the same 
time, which imply distinct mental elements, are those which can- 
not be explained away as contradictions, under given circum- 
stances, within the same element. 


I40. 9. ‘Would you place assent and dissent.’ From 
here down to C 29, ‘wholly opposed to the former,’ lays 
the groundwork of the argument by pointing out that desire 
and repugnance are prima facie opposites, coming under the 
general headings of assent and dissent respectively. Assent 
and dissent with the two other cases of opposition mentioned 
in the first paragraph are merely taken as standard examples 
of opposites, with which the mental dispositions mentioned in 
the second and third paragraphs are then identified. 

17. ‘The former of those general terms,’ more lit., (you 
would place them) ‘somewhere within those forms,’ Hidé. 
This paragraph speaks of the affirmative instances, and the 
following of the negative. 

26. ‘Under the head of mental rejection and repulsion.’ 
The antithesis as stated in this and the last paragraph would 
not coincide with that between reason and desire, which he 
is leading up to, although in it reason certainly does appear 
to him as primarily negative. For in the last paragraph he 
counts ‘will,’ which must at least be supposed to admit of a 
rational element, as a case of affirmation. And in reality of 
course, ‘reason’ (whatever that means in morality) may urge 
to action, and be opposed by the indolence of ‘desire’; but 
this is a fact which moralists seldom emphasise, and which 
in the following argument Plato does not notice. Here, it 
might be urged, he is merely illustrating the idea of opposi- 
sion and not yet applying it to desire versus reason. 

hoe ‘Shall we say that desires form a class’—Eidos ‘ form’ 

‘idea.’ He now takes the psychological element of desire, 
a sets himself to prove that it may meet with opposition 
in the mind in relation to a given object, and that as this 


BOOK IV. 153 


opposition is not due to a mere modification of desire within 
itself, it points, by the hypothesis, to the existence of an 
element in the mind (viz., reason) wholly distinct from desire. 
The upshot of this difficult passage is plainly given, 143. 2, 
439 A, B, so far as it bears on the argument: ‘Then the 
soul of a thirsty man, in so far as he is thirsty,’ etc., ze. 
When we say that a thirsty man restrained himself from. 
drinking, we mean that something in him fairly and squarely 
met and checked the act demanded by the desire as such; 
if we had merely meant that he desired hot tea, and did not 
care for the cold water offered him, we should not have said 
‘He was thirsty and restrained his desire to drink,’ but ‘he 
wanted something hot to drink, and was not attracted by 
something cold.’ Plato, however, becomes interested in the 
problem of correlatives, and pursues it further than the 
main argument requires. 

37- ‘Can thirst, then, so far as it is thirst.’ The main 
argument would have been equally well supported if Plato 
had simply alleged as a fact that desire can be restrained 
when its precise and full satisfaction is attainable. What he 
does say is that a modification of desire, which makes it con- 
tradictory and so interferes with its satisfaction, is not a ona 
fide case of restraining the desire as such. To use the kind 
of instance which he suggests, we cannot fairly say (so he 
contends), ‘I restrained my thirst,’ if I was only offered dirty 
water which I did not like to drink. In such a case I did 
not squarely meet and baffle the thirst as such, z.e. the sheer 
craving for drink. I desired clean drink and that I could not 
get. Now every counter-desire may be regarded as a modi- 
fying desire, and therefore Plato is ultimately taking a side in 
the psychological dispute, whether desire can be restrained by 
anything but desire. His point at present is that restraint of 
desire by desire is not genuine restraint at all, but restraint by 
‘reason’ alone deserves the name. This is hardly consistent 
with the implication of 132. 33, 431 D. If we confine his 
contention to desires on the same level as regards rationality, 


154 COMPANION TO PLATO’S REPUBLIC 


which is probably what he has in mind, there is much truth 
in it. 

437 E. 14t. 7. ‘Every desire in itself has to do with its natural 
object,’ more literally, ‘Each desire itself is only of each 
(object) itself’ (viz. that of which it naturally is), but the 
accessories are of what is such and such. Plato probably 
means that the desire can exist in the mind as a general desire, 
though it would be enough for his argument to say that in 
referring to it in the abstract we disregard its modifications. 

438 A 13. ‘Drink simply, but good drink.’ If modification of a 
desire by the desire of good, taken, e.g. as serviceableness to 
life in general, were allowed to count as restraint of desire by 
desire, Plato’s argument for a distinct moral element would be 
destroyed. We could always say ‘he did not overcome his 
desire for champagne, because he only desired it in as far 
as it was good for him, therefore his abstinence was due to 
his desire.’ Plato seems to urge that, as relatively speaking 
every object of desire is a good (compare first sentence of 
Aristotle’s £thics), a desire for good is not prima facie an 
influence in conflict with desire as such, and (I suggest to 

-complete his thought) any desire for good which could so 
conflict with or remould ordinary desire must have its source 
outside the region of desire proper. I see nothing false or 
obscure in this argument. ‘If you mean that drink as desired, 
is so far a good, that is nothing in restraint of the desire.’ 

‘If you mean a good purpose that restrains you in mode and 

times of drinking, that is not given by desire.’ 

21. ‘In the case of all essentially correlative terms.’ Plato 
generalises the principle that in relative terms a qualification 
of one implies a qualification of the other. No doubt the 
principle is sound,’ but no formal rule is possible as to the 
nature of the second qualification implied by the first. 
‘Father’ implies ‘child,’ but we cannot say that ‘good’ 
father implies either ‘good’ or ‘bad ’ child, although no 
doubt some effect on the second character necessarily 
follows from the first. See Jevons, Lessons in Elementary 


B 


BOOK IV. 155 


Logic, on added Determinants—really a fallacious form of 
inference. The genesis of technical language is strikingly 
illustrated by the Greek of this passage, which I will try 
to render literally as follows, admitting that it only becomes 
intelligible to us by help of the modernised technical 
terms, wholly unknown to Plato’s day, which Davies and 
Vaughan introduce. ‘In all that is such as to be of some- 
thing, the such-and-such, as I think, is gf a such-and-such, but 
it-by-itself is only of an it-by-itself” The naively puzzling 
statement is in part humorous, and its novelty is marked by 
the interlocutor’s bewilderment, as we have noted before. 
‘Such and such,’ a rough rendering for ‘ poios,’ Latin ‘ qualis’ 
(not ‘toios’ ‘talis’ the demonstrative = ‘such as that’), from 
which our term ‘quality’ is derived. Here we have the first 
use and meaning of this fateful term, as = ‘of a sort’ or ‘a 
such’ as opposed to the mere general ‘it’ or ‘ that.’ 

27. ‘That greater is a relative term, implying another term,’ 
more literally, ‘that the greater is such as to be greater than 
something.’ In Greek a comparative is followed by a 
genitive; hence the formula here comes under the general 
scheme ‘to be of something’; it might be kept by rendering 
‘to be the greater of something.’ 

35. ‘A future greater.’ The added determinants are here 
partly the same, whereas in speaking of desire they were 
opposite, which shows how impossible a formal rule is. 

142. 2. ‘Knowledge in the abstract,’ more literally, ‘ know- 438 C 
ledge itself’ (or ‘by itself’), is of the knowable itself, or what- 
ever we should set down knowledge as being of, but a 
science which is such-and-such is of az (object) which is such 
and such.’ All this has a bearing on the position of abstrac- 
tions, ‘absolute’ conceptions, or anything ‘in itself’ in Plato. 
As a rule, these expressions of translators simply represent 
the addition of a pronoun meaning ‘self,’ and merely indica- 
ting, prima facie, that the content of thought in question is to 
be taken on its merits or as it stands, without extraneous 
admixture. Most often, as here, the pronoun self ‘agrees’ 


o 


156 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


grammatically with the term to which it applies ; sometimes, 
but rarely in the Repudlic (oftener in the Phaedo), a pre- 
position is inserted, giving the effect of our phrase ‘zz’ or 
‘dy itself.’ See note on 141. 7 above, where the translation 
gives ‘in itself,’ for ‘ self’ simply agreeing with the substantive. 
438D to. ‘Because it is of a particular character,’ more literally, 
‘a such and such’ (not ‘talis’ but ‘gwalis’; there is no exact 
English equivalent), ‘like none of the others.’ And the 
following sentence, ‘Then itself became a such-and-such, 
because it was of a such-and-such.’ Aristotle continues to 
employ these pronominal phrases for some of his most 
important distinctions, e.g. between ‘a this’ and ‘a such’ 
(particular and universal). This is a different use from Plato’s. 

18. ‘In the case of all correlative terms.’ The Greek is 
almost the same as in I4I. 21, where see note. 

E 22. ‘That the qualities of the two are identical,’ more 
literally, ‘that they are such as that of which they are’; this 
shows a feeling of the difficulty touched in note on I4I. 35. 

26. ‘Instead of limiting itself to the abstract object of 
science,’ etc., more literally, ‘came to be science not of that 
itself of which science is, but of a such-and-such.’ 

28. ‘The conditions of health and disease,’ literally, ‘the 
healthy and the unwholesome’ or ‘ diseased.’ There is nothing 
about ‘conditions’ in the Greek, just as there is nothing 
about ‘abstract,’ or ‘ qualified,’ or ‘correlative,’ or ‘ object,’ or 
‘member of relation,’ or ‘relative term,’ in the whole section 
we are discussing. Yet the use of this technical language 
may not only be necessary to explain the Greek, but may even 
have an interest of its own, if we bear in mind that the trans- 
lation and the original belong to the two opposite ends of an 
immense historical evolution, the much-worn linguistic coun- 
ters of the former having their origin, though at a great dis- 
tance, in the direct and graphic conversational idioms of the 
latter. 

The above discussion of what is now called Relativity—con- 
ceived by Plato with reference to the connected modifications 


BOOK IV. 157 


of contents one of which is ‘ of’ the other—goes beyond the 
need of the immediate argument. It lays down the principle 
not merely that contents vary with circumstances (the vulgar 
and negative form. of negativity), but that the variations of 
connected contents are themselves connected. The applica- 
tion of this idea to object and subject, which is foreshadowed 
at the close of Book v., gives the true modern bearing of 
relativity, and the whole of Plato’s position involves this 
affirmative aspect of the idea as against the most futile inter- 
pretation of ‘man as the measure of things.’ The present 
passage, too, suggests definition by genus and species. All 
that the discussion does for the main argument is to exhibit a 
clear distinction between a modification which can only in a 
limited sense be contrary to that which it modifies—its genus 
—and a fair collision which arises from the conflict of im- 
pulses belonging to two distinct genera. 

34. ‘To recur to the case of thirst,’ more literally, ‘And as 
for thirst, will you not set down this, as that which it is (its 
essential nature, anticipates an Aristotelian term), to be one 
of these (things that are) ef something?’ ‘Certainly; of 
drink.’ Plato is now prepared to draw the general conclusion, 
‘If anything fairly checks thirst, it is a different sort of element 
from that which thirsts.’ 

40. ‘ Thirst in the abstract,’ literally, ‘ Thirst itself.’ 439 A 

143. 2. ‘Then the soul of a thirsty man’ (see note 140. 31). 
The point is, we are speaking of the desire as such, and the 
question is not whether it may take on a limited form incom- 
patible with its gratification, but whether its gratification can 
be straightforwardly checked. 

6. ‘Therefore whenever anything pulls back.’ If the soul B 
can be restrained from the gratification which it desires, in a 
manner that cannot be explained as the crossing of desire by 
desire, then the check is due to some other element of it 
(‘ principle,’ of course, is an insertion, literally, ‘the very (thing) > 
which thirsts’). ‘ Distinct from,’ literally, ‘other than.’ ‘Dis- | 
tinct’ is a Latinised technical term, having a long history 


Sect. 44. 


158 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


behind it, first in Greek and then in Latin thought, which was 
only beginning when Plato wrote about ‘other’ and ‘same.’ 

to. ‘ That the same thing should’: compare 139. 2 and 10, 
notes. Here ‘with the same part of itself’ is a more literal 
rendering than above, and the word ‘thing,’ though an inser- 
tion, happens to suit the meaning. We here get the full value 
of Plato’s careful statement of the axiom, in accordance with 
which the distinctness of elements within the whole ‘thing’ or 
‘soul’ does not impair its unity. 

15. ‘The bowman,’ perhaps analysing an example familiar 
in Heraclitus, who is apt not to distinguish ow opposite 
tensions combine within an orderly system, and therefore to 
_leave the impression that contradiction rather than co-operat- 
ing diversity is the principle of life. 


143. 20, 439 B—I46. 12, 441 Cc. 


It follows that the psychological elements or kinds in the soul, 
as they do produce bona fide different effects at once towards the 
same object, are distinct from one another; and they display 
themselves as calculation, desire, and spirit. 


439 B 143. 20. ‘Now, can we say, that people sometimes are 


thirsty and yet do not wish to drink’ ; better, ‘ decline to drink.’ 
The result of the long section which preceded was simply to 
clear the way for this application of the Law of Contradiction 
to facts. Section 42, ‘Opposition of effects involves distinct- 
ness of agents.’ Section 43, ‘This opposition of effects is not 
to be confused with self-modification of an effect.’ Section 44, 
‘There is opposition of the kind in question, between the 
effects of the following agents or elements.’ 


C 23. ‘Their soul contains one principle which commands,’ 


more literally, ‘ There is in their soul that which invites them 
to drink, and there is that which hinders them from drinking,’ 
.the latter being distinct and having authority. 

28. ‘ Whenever the authority which forbids such indulgence 
grows up in the soul,’ more literally, ‘ whenever the hindering 


BOOK IV. - 159 


(element) arises in the soul, it is engendered there by cal- 
culation.’ 

30. ‘While the powers which,’ more literally, ‘while what 439 D 
leads and drags (to the object of desire) presents itself by 
means of passion and infirmity.’ The connection between the 
terms ‘ passive,’ ‘ passion,’ ‘ affection’ and the like, would form 
a curious chapter in the history of psychology. On the one 
hand, it suggests that in the states so described the mind is 
somehow ‘suffering’ rather than ‘acting ’—is exposed to 
shocks from the not-self; on the other hand, a more active 
condition than that of extreme fasston, in the current mean- 
ing of the words, it would be hard to conceive. ‘The word 
translated infirmity, literally disease, illustrates the Greek 
feeling on this head ; Socrates, e.g. in the Phaedrus, describes 
himself by this word as having an infirmity: (a ‘ weakness’) for 
arguments (¢.e. being very fond of them), and the poets often 
apply the term to love. The moral reason appears here first 
as negative, and although really the account of the education 
in positive habits with a positive aim has already gone beyond 
this attitude, yet it is noteworthy as characteristic of the first 
view of ethics at all times. Compare note on 140. 26, 437 C. 

35- ‘ That these are two principles distinct one from the 
other.’ ‘Principles’ is an insertion throughout the paragraph, 
as also is ‘ part.’ This sentence draws the definite conclusion 
of the argument. 

36. ‘That part of the soul with which it reasons,’ more 
literally, ‘calling that with which it calculates the calculative 
(kind or part) of the soul.’ This isa new term for the ‘philo- 
sophic’ element, and indicates the aspect of reason (vafio, 
also an elementary meaning of ‘ Logos,’ the derivatives of 
which term, ‘ Logismos’ or ‘ Logistikos,’ here applied to the 
moral reason, distinctly = ‘calculation’ and ‘ calculative’) as 
calling up the consideration of means and consequences 
in restraint of ill-advised actions. This is a stage of the 
process by which ideas control acts, and has its reality in 
the everyday moral world which Plato is now analysing. 


160 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


See note on development of ‘philosophic’ element above, 
108. 5, 410 D. 

40. ‘Indulgences,’ literally ‘fillings.’ This word has a 
close connection with Plato’s theory of pleasure; see the use 
of ‘fulness’ and ‘to fill’ throughout, 324-5. 585 below. Its 
meaning ranges from the idea of process in satiating a bodily 
appetite, to that of satisfaction in grasping a substantive good. 
Aristotle misinterprets Plato so far as he recognises only the 
former application of the term. It must be conceded, how- 
ever, that Plato’s psychology of pleasure does not distinguish 
between pleasantness and the other content of objects; in 
other words, he uses ‘ pleasure’ much as we use ‘a pleasure,’ 
and, therefore, identifies pleasure with the object of desire. 

439 E 43. ‘These two specific parts’ (Eidé).. The ‘spirit’ as a 
passion or affection—we speak of the passion of anger—has 
a certain resemblamce, prima facie, to the appetitive element, 
which the first answer insists on. The story of Leontius 
recalls the connection between anger and self-respect or self- 
assertion. ' 

440A 144, 20. ‘Fights against the desires.’ This gives the con- 
clusion that the two ‘kinds’ are distinct according to the 
argument of the two preceding sections. 

B28. ‘That it should make common cause with the desires.’ 
It does not seem hard to be angry when interfered with in 
doing wrong; but Plato is not here allowing either for self- 
deception or for the sovereignty of the bad self (contrast 
account of tyrant, Book 1x.). /f the moral reason, 7.¢., we 
may suggest, the system of objects and principles which forms 
the active self, is against the presented indulgence, then no 
doubt the self is ex Aypothest debarred from ‘rising as one 
man’ in favour of the desire. The phrase ‘reason pro- 
nounces’ stands for a common Greek idiom, and throws no 
light on the psychological process by which Plato supposed 
reason to pronounce and enforce its verdict. 

C 34. ‘ Well, and when any one thinks he is in the wrong.’ In 
this and the two following paragraphs, the manifestation of 


BOOK IV. 161 


‘spirit’ is described rather as a complex of the higher emotions 
—-self-respect, pride, loyalty, honour—than as the ordinary 
impulse of resentment. Thus the question is raised for us 
whether the intermediate position between reason and — 
appetite, which Plato claims for the educated ‘spirit,’ might 
not equally well be claimed for any of the higher emotions, 
z.e. feelings qualified by comprehensive ideas, such as 
benevolence, sympathy, veracity, love of purity or beauty. 
The implied distinction between appetites and emotions is an 
important step in ethical psychology, though introduced by 
Plato in a bizarre form. Of course the first education above, 
and the account of the philosophic temper below, largely 
supplement Plato’s conception of spirit as an account of the 
more ideal emotions. All these presuppose some idea of self, 
all, therefore, are in some sense likely to defend the self as a 
whole against the aggressions of rebel inclination. 

145. 9. ‘We made the auxiliaries like sheep-dogs subject to 440 D 
the rulers’ (see 62-3. 375-6). The ‘philosophic’ element was 
at first a mere safeguard to the ‘spirit.’ Later their respective 
importance was reversed. 

22. ‘Or is it only a modification of it?’ more literally, ‘a E 
form (eidos) of the calculative.’ Plato sees, no doubt, that the 
ideal feelings must not be absorbed either in appetite or in the 
calculative intelligence. But the parallel with the classes in 
the commonwealth, to which he appeals, is not sufficiently 
analysed to be a cogent reason to us. He himself proceeds 
to a more psychological reason. 

35. ‘Even in little children.’ At least the sense of resent- 441 A 
ment at being interfered with precedes anything like clear 
intelligence, and some men are under the rule of self-assertive 
emotion all their lives. This again is not a convincing psycho- 
logical argument for the absolute distinctness of reason and 
emotion, but it shows sufficiently for Plato’s purpose that they 
are distinguishable sides in the entire psychosis. He adds that 
‘spirit’ is clearly visible in animals, and that resentment may 
be unreasonable. Quotation from Odyssey, 82. 390 above. 

L 


Sect. 45. 


441 E 


162 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


146. 10. ‘Corresponding divisions,’ literally ‘the same 
kinds,’ having also the meaning of ‘classes’ when applied to 
the commonwealth. 


146. 13, 441 C—148. 38, 443 B. 

The virtues of the individual, or inward morality, in their 
correspondence and connection with those of the commonwealth 
or with outward morality. 


30. ‘If his inward (faculties) do severally their proper 
work,’ ‘a doer of his proper work.’ Although Plato regards 
inward morality, or, as we say, the good w//, as the essence 
of goodness (see 149. 443 C and D), yet he is careful (compare 
Book 1. 8-9. 332-3) not to make a severance between the two 
sides of will and deed or faith and works, whereby the inner 
loses content and the outer freedom. ‘This entire passage 
should be carefully studied for the sense and bearing in which 
it is said that intelligence is to be sovereign. Does intelli- 
gence stand for mere asceticism and abstraction from life, or 
for an affirmative purpose which shapes the mind and moulds 
the whole man? Here Plato strikes the note ‘the man will 
discharge his function if his mental kinds severally discharge 
theirs.’ 

35. ‘The province of. the rational principle to command.’ 
Plato points out the part played by the several psychological 
elements, in a duly organised mind, first with reference to 
goodness or justice, and then more shortly with reference to 
the other ‘excellences.’ The calculative principle is sovereign. 
It represents the whole mind in a conception of life which 
gives all elements their due. The ‘spirit’ may stand for self- 
assertive feeling attached to the idea of self which the intelli- 
gence maintains. It is therefore truly the ally of intelligence. 

41. ‘The combination of music and gymnastic,’ here very 
widely conceived as an education which positively nourishes 
the intelligence with great principles and ideas, while temper- 
ing the self-assertive emotion to the habit of loyalty and the 
instinctive sense of fitness. 


BOOK IV. 163 


147. 6. ‘Having been thus trained, and having truly learnt 442 4 
their parts.’ Education, it must be remembered, is to Plato 
and Aristotle the means by which the mind and character of 
society are realised in the individual. Thus we have here a 
fundamental unity between the inner and outer system. The 
‘justice’ or ethical organisation of the man is a mirror of the 
ethical organisation of society. ‘Trained’; better, ‘nurtured.’ 

‘Their parts,’ literally ‘their own (things),’ the phrase 
employed in describing justice throughout. 

8. ‘Concupiscent principle.’ The insistence on this being 
the largest part of the soul seems to be Plato’s way of indicat- 
ing its natural want of unity—it is to him ‘a manyheaded 
monster thing’: see description of monster (end of Book 1x.) ; 
compare the smallness of the class in which wisdom resides, 
I29. 428 E above, and 30 below. ‘Insatiable,’ ‘covetous’ : 
compare the ‘industrious’ class, 136. 35, 434 C, above, and 
note. ‘To do its proper work,’ z.e. to serve as a means to 
good and complete life. It is admitted that desires can be 
‘simple and moderate,’ 132. 26, 431 C, D, and they then of 
course represent the element of ‘life,’ which is the neces- 
sary substratum of good life. On the satisfaction of all parts 
of the mind in a life according to reason, see 327. 586 E 
below. 

25. ‘Spirited element,’ literally ‘part.’ The designation of C 
the psychological elements varies ; ‘kind,’ ‘form,’ ‘ part,’ are 
all used. In a man who belonged to the soldier class, the 
‘instructions of the reason’ would be a direct reflection of the 
character recognised as courageous (‘manly ’) by the laws and 
rulers and imparted by education. The manliness of an 
artisan would not directly enter into the public virtue of 
courage (see note 129. 27, 4274 above) and would indeed 
hardly be recognised as courage proper by a Greek. Com- 
pare Aristotle, Z¢hizcs, iii. 6, 5, 11. Aristotle e.g. thinks that 
maritime danger (excluding naval war, I imagine) is not a 
field in which true courage can be shown. So he thinks that 
to be unmoved at the prospect of being scourged is not true 


164 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


courage. He is not accustomed to connect these conditions 
with high-minded men acting from a sense of duty, and also 
his idea of courage is essentially active, while the landsman, 
whom he has in mind, is condemned to inaction at sea. 
There is nothing perhaps in which we differ from the Greeks 
so widely as in our subtler recognition of heroism. Ours 
would also however be derived, though less immediately, from 
the general type of character and discharge of duty demanded 
from individuals by the accepted social ideal. Of course 
there is still great practical truth in the idea that certain 
virtues are expected on the whole of certain classes. 

30. ‘Wise, in virtue of that small part’; ‘part’ is here 
literal. ‘Small’: see note on 129. 13,428. The ‘wisdom’ 
of each individual would primarily be a conception of his 
station and its duties, determined by his training and involy- 
ing a conception of society and the purpose of life, at least 
sufficient for his needs. Law, tradition, and public opinion 
would all co-operate to mould his ideal system, which in a 
‘ruler’ (according to Plato’s theory) would be on the one 
hand a perfect intelligence of the commonwealth and all its 
parts and functions, and on the other hand a concrete notion 
of his own life and duty, furnishing an adequate plan and 
place for all the elements of his nature. The ‘wisdom’ of 
every individual in the community would have the same 
double aspect, and would only be enabled to satisfy the whole 
nature of the individual because the elements of that nature 
are duly represented in the working system of the community 
which the private intelligence reflects. This seems to be 
Plato’s view so far; it may be that the second half of the 
Republic enlarges the nature, which has to be satisfied in 
morality, beyond the mere social self. 

36. ‘ Temperance’; the nature of temperance has really been 
insisted on in describing the relation of the three pyschologi- 
cal elements, 6 above, 442, ‘And so these two having been 
thus trained,’ etc.: cf. below, 332. 590 D, E, on the spiritual 
need of control by the higher element. The agreement of the 


BOOK IV. 165 


desires with the reason involves a modification of their nature 
and number, such as is produced by the wise ‘gardener’ of 
the soul, 330. 589 B. 


148. 1. ‘Just.’ Justice is really portrayed in the above 442 D 


account of the parts and excellences of the mind, as it con- 
sists in the proper working of the whole. 


1o. ‘Commonplace examples’; verification by comparing E 


the theory with what common opinion expects of just men. 
‘By their fruits ye shall know them’: compare 136. 4344 
above, where the account of a just commonwealth is 
verified in the same way. ‘The ‘just’ or ‘good’ man of 
common parlance will be honest, pious, and loyal, truthful and 
dutiful to God and his neighbour, much as described by 
Cephalus and Polemarchus, Book 1. This agrees with the 
character of Plato’s ‘just’ man, and is directly attributable 
(31 below) to the right unity which is maintained in the 
organisation of his will. The right unity is that which har- 
monises with the social idea. There may be a wrong unity, 
which is of course in some degree false and precarious. See 
284. 554 on the miser’s character, or 293. 561 on the false 
liberal (‘democratic’ man). 


36. ‘The power which’; ‘power’ is here an actual noun, 443 B 


‘dunamis,’ sometimes rendered ‘faculty.’ For definition of 
a ‘dunamis,’ see 192. 477 on ‘faculties.’ It means, in 
short, a quality only knowable by its effects. 


148. 39, 443 B—I5I. 7, 444 E. 


Natural law is the symbol and germ of morality, which ts the 
health of the soul, as wickedness ts tts disease. 


148. 39. ‘Our dream is completely realised’: see 134. 433 A, 
‘What at the commencement we laid down as a universal 
rule of action when we were founding our state, this, if I mis- 
take not, or some modification (form) of it, is justice.’ ‘A 
kind of rudimentary type,’ more literally, ‘a beginning and 
type, z.e. canon or outline, the word used in speaking of 


Sect. 46. 


166 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


theology, and constantly recurred to in designating the very 
general nature of Plato’s treatment. 

443 C 49. 2. ‘A rude outline of justice,’ literally, ‘an image,’ or 
‘simulacrum’ (‘ eidolon,’ idol). This echoes the expressions 
of 97-8. 402 B, Cc, about reflections and images, and points 
forward to the allegory of the Den and the ideas connected 
with it. A natural fact, considered as an image of a higher 
truth, is a symbo/, and so Plato finds that the natural law which 
assigns a ‘ work’ to everything (close of Book 1.), and makes 
division of labour the economic basis of society (genesis of 
society, Book 11.), is a symbol of morality and derives its 
value for his investigation (or, its real serviceableness as a 
principle of social arrangement,) from that character. 

8. ‘Justice zs indeed,’ literally ‘was.’ This curious use of 
the past tense includes reference to the former passage in 
question, but also seems to indicate an identification with 
reality, as opposed to mere appearance, which is taken as 
present. Aristotle adopts it in his strange technical formula 
for essence, ‘the what it zwas to be (a given thing),’ ze. really 
is. Compare ‘Tempus erat,’ Horace, Carm. i. 37, 4. ‘It ds 
time, as we thought.’ 

D_ 11. ‘ His own interests,’ literally ‘the (things) of himself,’ 
exactly the same phrase as that rendered ‘ his own work,’ just 
above. ‘Try, for the whole passage, ‘Not about a man doing 
what belongs to him without, but about that within, dealing 
in very truth with himself and with his own.’ Plato treats 
the inward morality, the goodwill, which he regards rather as 
the ‘natural’ or complete and self-consistent organisation of 
the mind, as the climax and essence of goodness, of which 
the law of function in things and persons is but a symbol and 
type. But the latter part of this paragraph, ‘he will then at 
length proceed to do,’ shows that external actions, considered 
as the manifestation of a fully organised good will, are never 
cut loose by him from their relation to morality, but are 
considered not only as a necessary consequence, but also 
as an essential condition of maintaining the vig#¢ unity or 


BOOK IV. 167 


organisation of the will, taking ‘ will,’ for which Plato has no 
separate name, as simply=the man in relation to action. 

21. ‘Reduced the many elements of his nature to a real 443 E 
unity, more lit., ‘having in all respects become one out of 
many,’—the true unity of the human soul or actual self is not 
given but has to be made: compare account of the monster, 
close of Book 1x. This reiterated view of the moral self is 
exceedingly important for Plato’s psychology. Of course a 
degree of psychical unity is presupposed in the possibility of 
achieving such a moral self-organisation. 

22. ‘He will then at length.’ Of course Plato does not 
really mean to postpone action, which is the means of training, 
till training is completed. He only follows the custom of 
regarding action as subsequent to will. 

28. ‘The just and honourable course is that which pre- 
serves and assists in creating the aforesaid habit of mind’; 
‘honourable,’ literally ‘ beautiful.’ Compare the fine passage 
in the simile of the monster, 330-1. 589; and 367. 618 E. 
The sentence taken by itself is ambiguous. If good life is to 
be wholly defined with reference to inward morality, then the 
solid criterion is lost, and the door is opened to any form of 
superstitious asceticism. But we have seen that the course of 
action which alone has power to guarantee the 77gh¢ organisa- 
tion of mind, is that correlative to the social idea, which - 
at the present stage represents the harmonious expression 
of man’s nature according to its individual modification. 
‘Habit,’ Greek ‘hexis,’ from ‘echein’ to have, like Latin 
‘habitus,’ from ‘habere.’ Here we find, as I5I. 6, 444 E proves 
beyond question, the germ of that great ethical and psycho- 
logical truth which the translators indicate by rendering 
‘hexis’ as ‘habit.’ And Aristotle in adopting the term 
‘hexis’ to express the effect produced upon disposition by 
repeated action, exhibits the continuity of Plato’s suggestion 
with his own doctrine, from which the modern conception of 
‘habit’ is derived. Probably, however, we do wrong in read- 
ing the whole of this development back into Plato, and we 





168 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


should be nearer his literal meaning here, if we understood 
‘habit ’ as it is used in phrases like ‘ habit of body,’ ‘ habit of 
a plant,’ rather than as indicating custom and its results. 
Perhaps ‘ behaviour’ would be a fair gloss. ‘Genuine know- 
ledge,’ contrast ‘mere opinion’ below. The opposition is 
intentional, and rightly emphasised by the translators through 
the insertion of ‘genuine’ and ‘ mere,’ which are not in the 
Greek. For the distinction of Knowledge and Opinion, see 
close of Book v. 

444 A 36. ‘If we were to say we have discovered.’ This is in 
sharp contrast with the tone of some of the ‘ Socratic ’ 
dialogues, and at two points in Book 1. the Republic holds 
similar language to theirs (see 13. 336 a, ‘we have again 
failed,’ and closing passage of Book 1.). Plato seems to think 
that when he has exhibited morality as an actual working 
system, both in the mind and in the world, he may say that 
he has so far discovered what it is. 

150. 2. ‘Injustice.’ The remainder of this section (i.) ex- 
hibits the nature of goodness more plainly by contrasting it 
with badness ; (ii.) in doing so reiterates and confirms the 
argument, 33-4. 351, which deduces the weakness of wicked- 
ness from its disintegrating effect ; and (iii.) leads up to the 
following section, which prepares the way for a historical 
philosophy of social corruption and its causes, as a negative 
verification of the theory of social health which has just been 
exhibited. 

B_ 6. ‘A part of the mind against the whole’; ‘part’ is here 
literal. It is the relation of part to whole, the whole being of 
a determinate kind, which explains the subsequent and recur- 
ring metaphor of the elements whose nature is to obey and 
rule. 
10. ‘To any member of the rightfully dominant class’ ; 
better, ‘to whatever is of the governing kind.’ 
rr. ‘Such doings as these, I imagine,’ more literally, 

‘this kind of thing, and the confusion and delusion which 

attaches to it, we shall take to constitute.’ 


BOOK IV. 169 


12. ‘Injustice, licentiousness’—the opposites of the four 
cardinal virtues. ‘ Licentiousness’=‘Akolasia,’ which Aristotle 
made the technical name for ‘intemperance’ (‘ Profligacy’ 
in Peters’ translation of the £7¢hics), the usual opposite of 
temperance. ‘Cowardice’ opposite of fortitude or manli- 
ness, ‘folly’ of wisdom, ‘and in a word all vice,’ apparently 
parodying a hexameter line which Aristotle quotes as pro- 
verbial, ‘In Justice, in a word, all virtue lies.—Z¢hics, v. 
jas. 

23. ‘The conditions of health,’ literally ‘ healthy (things).’ 444 C 
‘A healthy life’ would probably render the point of the argu- 
ment better, as it refers to the effect of repeated acts on 
permanent states. But in any case the relation of a healthy 
way of living to health is not quite on all fours with that of 
moral acts to moral habit. (See note on habit, 150. 28 
above.) 

26. ‘The practice of justice begets the habit of justice.’ 
Here we have the doctrine of moral habituation distinctly 
stated. Yet the word ‘ habit’ is not here in the Greek, which 
is more lit., ‘Then does not the doing just (things) make 
justice in (a man), and the (doing) unjust (things) injustice ?’ 

30. ‘ Now to produce health.’ The parallel between health D 
and goodness very strictly carried through. The essential 
point is that health and goodness are both ‘according to 
nature,’ while their opposites are violations of nature. This 
fateful term ‘nature’ is here to be very simply and yet very 
largely understood. Unfortunately, by introduction of the 
Latinised noun, beside the English verb, it has lost for us the 
fundamental meaning which its form at once suggests in 
Greek or Latin, viz., ‘to be born for’ a certain end, or work, 
or completion of any kind, as a man is ‘born for’ a certain 
growth and life, while the meaning, again, is not restricted, as 
with us, to human or animal parturition, but can be used of 
any object, or even idea, in the sense which we should have 
to express by some paraphrase such as ‘to be by nature.’ 
Thus 41. 358 E above, ‘To commit injustice is, they say, in 


444 E 


Sect. 47. 


445A 


170 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


its nature good,’ etc., is, quite literally, ‘they say that to do 
wrong as been born (is by nature) a good.’ (See above, 55. 
5, 370 Aand B, and notes.) This idea of being ‘ born for’ or 
‘to’ a certain work, or place, or properties, which determines 
the meaning of ‘by nature’ in Plato or Aristotle, excludes 
from the first all the brood of fallacies which attach themselves 
to the notion of a ‘natural’ state as excluding development. 
The whole Hellenic feeling on this point is pregnantly 
summed up ina sentence of Aristotle: ‘Whatever anything 
is when its growth (genesis) has reached its end (or final 
cause) is what we affirm to be the nature of the thing, as of a 
man, a horse, or a house.’—Polttics, i. 1. Thus the working 
of the developed bodily, mental, or social organism is the 
test of what is or is not ‘natural.’ 

I51. 5. ‘All fair practices.’ The principle of habituation, 
also involving the connection of the inner and outer system 
(faith and works), emphatically repeated as the last word of 
the strictly ethical discussion. Of course the essence of it is 
implied throughout the first education, in the conception of 
acquiring right likings and being taught to do right acts 
before the reasons for them are or can be perceived. Never- 
theless, the special importance of habit in forming the will 
and as a condition of complete morality is, as Mr. Jowett says, 
the discovery of Aristotle and not of Plato. 


I51. 8, 444 E—end of Book. 


Anticipation of the negative verification, the thread of which 
is resumed at the opening of Book VIII. 


8. ‘Whether it be profitable.’ Taking up the challenge of 
24. 344, and 52. 367. 

18 and 21. ‘The constitution,’ literally ‘the nature,’ 
because disease and wickedness were explained to be ‘ against 
nature.’ ‘Of that very principle whereby we live,’ literally 
‘of that very (thing),’ or ‘of that itself whereby we live,’ an 
exact equivalent for mind or soul in the wide meaning with 


BOOK IV. ge: 


which Plato and Aristotle employ the word. Compare 37. 
353 above, ‘Shall we declare life to be a function of the 
soul?’ The question, ‘Why should I be moral?’ if referred 
to consequences outside morality, is of course self-contra- 
dictory. The statement of it on 52. 367 E above, was, as 
we saw, ambiguous. It now appears, however, that philosophy 
can only analyse the nature of morality and immorality, and 
not give external reasons for and against them, but also, that 
this is enough. 

152. 2. ‘Five forms,’ ‘five characters.’ To obtain these 445 C 
the psychology has to be made more elaborate, and this 
alteration is here anticipated. ‘The parts of the dialogue are 
so skilfully linked together that if there was any interval! 
between the composition or appearance of any of them, as is 
prima facie quite probable in a work which obviously includes 
so much development of thought, it is now impossible to 
discover the junctions. The reference to the five characters 
anticipates the psychology of Books vill. and 1x., and Plato 
intentionally gives to Books v., vi., and vil., the appearance 
of a digression or interruption. But we could not attempt 
to treat these books as a later insertion without falling into 
further difficulties. Book 1x. is thoroughly coherent with 
Book viil., yet the account of pleasure in Book rx. certainly 
presupposes the discussions on reality in Books vi. and VIL. ; 
moreover, if we divide the whole of Book v. from the 
present passage, we shall be separating the conclusion of the 
‘Hellenic city’ (470) from the account of it down to the 
present point. The transition to the city of philosophers 
takes place not here, but at 471. Yet if we try to divide at 
471, we shall be tearing apart discussions obviously held 
together by the simile of the three waves, in which the 
number three is essential. Thus, as the work now stands, it 
is, and was meant to be, an indivisible whole. Undoubtedly 
there are appearances of afterthought in such passages as 
244. 521-2, 262. 535, as in the whole relation of the meta- 
physic of Books v., vi., vi., or the psychology of vii. and 1x. 


172 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


to the social ethic of 11, u1., 1v. But such a;work was cer- 
tainly not written in a brief space of time, ange know that 
development of views constantly exhibits itself even within 
the rigid frame of a modern treatise. Moreover it is im- 
possible to say for certain that anything in the growth of 
ideas or retrospective references which the Aepudlic displays 
goes beyond the natural freedom of such a writer as Plato, 
allowing his subject to develop organically in his hands. 
Lastly, I would point out that publication in the ancient 
world can hardly have been the definite and irrevocable act 
which it is with us. (See further, Introduction, Sect. vii.) 
The direct traditions which exist that Plato read aloud isolated 
books or portions of the Republic are of no value, but it is 
extremely probable that he would do so, and that he might 
permit copies of them to be circulated. 

5. ‘One form of government will be that which we have 
described.’ 

It is of interest at this point, before we leave Plato’s 
simpler exposition of the conditions of a healthy society, to 
compare his view of social possibilities with that of Aristotle. 
The condition of social life on the one hand, and its ultimate 
aim on the other, are expressed in two trenchant sayings of 
Aristotle, which must be construed as complementary and 
not contradictory: ‘No society can be formed out of 
similars’ (Pod. ii. 1), ze. the members of a whole must be 
diverse; and, ‘Society aims at consisting of equals and 
similars so far as possible’ (Pod. iv. 11; cf. vii. 7), ze. the ideal 
of society is a community of persons on the same general 
level. In his view as to the true nature of a commonwealth, 
Aristotle pays more attention to the latter principle, as Plato 
to the former. For Aristotle (od. vii. 7) society is an associa- 
tion of ‘ similars’ aiming at the best life ; and as the ‘best’ is 
happiness, which is excellence (virtue) in perfect use and 
activity, and not all are capable of this, the forms and classes of 
commonwealths are determined by the distribution of capacity 
for such participation, and the society or commonwealth 


BOOK IV. 173 


as such consists in each case only of those who are so capable, 
the industrial and commercial classes being omitted, and 
@ fortiori the women. Plato, on the contrary, as we saw, 
135. 20, 433 D, faces the problem in its whole difficulty, 
making every child, slave, woman, and workman a member 
of the state, and in his or her degree a vehicle of its principle. 
But Plato’s conception pays the penalty of its thoroughness, 
and the attractive ideal of society as a company of peers and 
comrades, banded together to live the good life and all 
qualified to share alike in government and in obedience, is 
one which we owe not to Plato, but to Aristotle. Only we 
must not forget the exclusion by which it is purchased. We 
need the thoroughness of Plato’s ideal, combined with the 
perfection of Aristotle’s, fully to represent the possibilities of 
society; but though there is no reason to doubt that a 
general rise of level in civilised humanity has been and may 
further be attained, it is Plato’s account which, if we look at 
the obvious facts, has always been the truest, and can never 
wholly cease to be true. 


BOOK V 


Sect. 48. Beginning of Book v.—156. 19, 451 C. 


Introduction to the communism of women and children, 
represented as an afterthought so far as the full exposition of 
it is concerned, but still within the ‘ Hellenic’ commonwealth. 


449A 153. 1. ‘Good and right’ (see Book vi., near beginning), 
‘you had it in your power to tell us of a still more excellent 
state, and of a still more excellent man.’ 
6. ‘ Reducible to four varieties,’ literally ‘are in four forms 
(eidé) of evil.’ 
22. ‘Section,’ literally ‘form’ or ‘species’ (eidé). 

C 26. ‘Common property’ (see 122. 424 A), literally ‘The 
(things) of friends are common.’ The proverb does not in 
itself necessarily suggest common ownership; it may be 
taken to indicate just the reverse. (See Introduction, Aris- 
totle’s Criticisms upon Plato.) 

450C 155. 8. ‘Among our guardians.’ The definite arrange- 
ments of the Republic affect only the guardian class, in which 
we must consider the soldier class to be included. The life 
of the other classes is left in the background, and we cannot 
say whether it would or would not have been assimilated to 
that of the guardians if Plato had thought it worth while to 
develop a scheme in greater detail. The fact is that the 
main principles which he had in mind were sufficiently 
illustrated by dealing with the life of the guardians. For 


a suggestive sketch of his city based on accepting a serious 
174 


BOOK V. 175 


difference in degree of asceticism between the guardians and 
the other citizens, see Mr. Pater’s Plato and Platonism, 
p. 228. 

1o. ‘The most troublesome business of all.’ It is the 
great physical obstacle (putting out of sight the moral 
functions of home life throughout) to professional or indus- 
trial activity on the part of married women, and as such 
Plato proposes to deal with it. (See 169. 3, 460.) Right or 
wrong, he goes effectively to his point. 

39. ‘I pray that the divine Nemesis,’ etc., more literally 451 A 
‘I bow to (deprecate) Adrasteia (Nemesis).’ Probably an 
echo of Aeschylus’ Prom. V. 936, in which Poseidon counsels 
Prometheus to adopt a less defiant attitude . . . ‘Who wor- 
ship Adrasteia, they are wise.’ The precise reference here 
is uncertain, but probably Socrates is excusing his audacity 
in treating (and treating critically) matters of such immense 
importance. 

43. ‘Noble and good and just zmstitutions,’ rather ‘laws’ 
or ‘formule.’ The same word occurs 196. 2, 479 D, where 
‘the mass of notions current among the mass of men’ is 
literally, ‘the many formulze (or ‘rules’) of the multitude.’ 
There is a doubtful reading in the present passage, but the 
meaning is not seriously affected by it. 

156. 9. ‘He is clean even zz the next world, literally B 
‘there,’ and ‘zx this world, literally ‘here.’ It is not certain 
that the reference is to this and the other world, although 
the Greek suggests that meaning (see 5. 18, note.) Jowett 
takes it as a contrast between ‘in law’ and ‘in argument. 


156. 20, 451 C—I58. 23, 453 B. Sect. 49. 


Proposal that women should share the occupations and 
education of men, tn the guardian class. 


26. ‘Guardians of a flock’ (see 63. 375, II5. 416). AsC 
the germs of the psychology, so also the elements of the 
view to be taken about the work of the female are elicited, 


176 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


partly in fun, but not without a genuine sense of fact, from 
observation of the animal world. 

451D 32. ‘Do we think that the females.’ Inference from the 
treatment of animals under domestication: cf. 166-7. 459 
below, the appeal to the experience of breeders. There is 
something very modern in this frank recognition of man’s 
animal nature and of the lessons to be learnt from it. By 
considering exclusively those aspects of Greek thought which 
bear apparent analogy to medizval dualism, we forfeit the 
understanding of one whole side of the Greek mind, namely, 
the accessibility to experience and the continuity in its view 
of the world, which afford so wide and solid a basis for its 
idealism. 

E 41. ‘Is it possible to use animals.’ In common speech 
to-day ‘animal’ excludes ‘man.’ In French eg. ‘animal’ is 
aterm of abuse, like ‘beast’ in English. The Greek word 
‘zoon,’ which has the same etymological meaning ‘living 
thing,’ has absolutely no such implication, and when Aristotle 
defined man as a ‘ political animal’ there would be to a Greek 
no feeling of a joke or paradox, as there is to us. Thus, the 
connection between this and the following sentence is not, as 
to an English reader, an inference by analogy, but a valid 
conclusion by help of a general principle which fairly covers 
it. Ifwe read ‘living creature’ for ‘animal’ we should get 
nearer the spirit of the passage. 

452A 157. 8. ‘A military education.’ Plato goes at once to the 
extreme conclusion, a practice which has the advantage of 
leaving no doubt on the scope of the principle. Any one 
can put in reservations. ‘Any one can fill in the details,’ as 
Aristotle says. 

15. ‘The most ridiculous.’ An education on the same lines 
for male and female does not involve all the difficulties of an 
education im common, eg. it seems to us a simple thing to 
establish separate gymnasia. Mixed day-schools and classes 
are said, however, to have certain advantages. The general 
formula of our return to the Greeks seems to hold good here 


BOOK V. , 177 


also, viz., that in coming back to the unity which they so 
profoundly divined, we bring with us the safeguard of a 
deeper experience which could not have been gained except 
by departing from that unity. If Plato’s ideas had triumphed 
from his day onwards, there could have been no Christian 
family and no chivalry or romance. But after our experience 
of the family and of chivalry and romance, we may safely go 
back to the solid truth of Plato’s ideas. 

34. ‘As it is now among most barbarian nations.’ Thucy- 452 C 
dides, i. 6, points out that in many respects the older Greeks 
had resembled the barbarians of his‘day. He ascribes the 
introduction of ‘gymnastic’ in the strict sense (from ‘ gumnos,’ 
naked) to the Lacedzemonians. 

158. 10. ‘Whether the regulations proposed are practicable.’ E 
This, as Plato treats it, virtually involves the question of 
desirability also, as ‘ practicable’=‘suitable to the nature of 
the persons concerned.’ Hence the discussion of this point 
extends down to 163. 456 c, and leaves little to be said 
afterwards on desirability. 


158. 24, 453 B—I59. 23, 453 E. Sect. 50. 


Statement of objection to identity of vocations for man and 
woman, drawn from fundamental principle of commonwealth: 
‘ different natures different vocations.’ 


27. ‘At the beginning of your scheme for constructing a 453 B 
state’: see above, 55. 5, 370 A, and cf. the principle of analogy, 
32. 349 above, ‘every one belongs to the class whose at- 
tributes he possesses.’ A further logical question is opened 
up, viz., that of the relativity of classification to its purpose or 
standard ; granting that a and # are of the same class judged 
by the standard or purpose X, does it follow that they are so 
if judged by Y? 

159. 18. ‘We admitted that different natures,’ etc. The E 
ebjection restated. 

M 


Sect. 51. 


454A 


178 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


159. 24, 454 A—I60. 40, 454 E. 


We cannot determine whether two natures are the same or 
different until we have considered the standard or purpose in 
relation to which they are being compared. To omit this 
consideration is characteristic of verbal contention as opposed 
to scientific discusston. 


159. 24. ‘Controversy,’ dispute for dispute’s sake, the 
same thing as the ‘debate’ mentioned below. 

27. ‘Fancy they are discussing, when they are merely 
debating.’ ‘ Discussing,’ literally ‘using dialectic,’ ze. arguing 
scientifically. ‘Debating,’ lit. ‘striving’ (‘erizein,’ connected 
with ‘eris,’ strife or competition); ‘contention’ perhaps 
expresses the meaning. 

‘ Because they cannot distinguish the meanings of a term,’ 
etc., more lit. ‘because they are incapable of examining the 
matter under discussion by distinguishing it according to its 
forms (eidé, the modifications or aspects which it takes on in 
different contexts or relations), but they will urge their con- 
tradiction of what has been propounded, in reliance on the 
mere sound of the word, dealing with one another by 
contention (‘eris’) and not by scientific argument (‘ dialectic ’).’ 

The distinction between Eristic or contentious debate, and 
Dialectic or scientific reasoning, is not for Plato merely a 
difference of aim and temper, but has a definite relation to 
certain elements in the immature logical theory of his day. 
The great crux of Greek philosophy, how the one can also 
be many, presents itself in one phase as a denial that a 
significant predication can be true. Every assertion has the 
form ‘a is 6’; but how can this be true? Must we not 
confine ourselves to the tautology ‘ais a’? In other words, 
do not difference. and identity exclude each other? If so, 
the graduated classification which is implied in all knowledge 
is destroyed, and about any nameable thing you can affirm 
either its own name and no more, or any possible predicate 
with equal truth. This doctrine, with all its consequences, 


BOOK V. 179 


Plato calls ‘ eristic’ or ‘contentious,’ in opposition to ‘ dialectic,’ 
which essentially consists in a due gradation of predicates 
such as forms a scientific system, ¢.g. systematic botany. To 
establish a theory of predication in opposition to this fallacy 
was the great achievement by which Plato became the true 
founder of logic. In the Philebus (16 c—18 E) Plato analyses 
the ‘ eristic’ tendency, which he there describes as refusing to 
make those intermediate distinctions on which ail science 
depends, and only recognising a bare unit on the one hand, 
and an undistinguished and therefore unknown ‘indefinite’ on 
the other hand. This=taking the Law of Identity to mean 
either ‘@ is (mere) a,’ or ‘a is (undistinguished from) 3.’ 
He takes the instance of human language. If we know 
simply that ‘language is language’ on the one hand, or 
that ‘language includes an indefinite mass of sounds’ on 
the other, we know nothing. We only acquire a science of 
language by knowing how many components it has, and of 
what kind, ze. in Plato’s phrase by of ‘considering the in- 
definite immediately after the one, and letting the intermediate 
distinctions escape us.’ The same error is burlesqued in the 
Euthydemus, 298 c: ‘The same man cannot be a father (of 
one) and not a father (of another), therefore Euthydemus’ 
father is every one’s father.’ Such arguments are in the 
strictest sense verbal, because the meaning of a word can only 
be stated in assertions, while the essence of this view is to 
isolate the word from the context of all assertions which 
express a meaning, for the reason that every such assertion 
modifies the identity by some positive difference in the form 
‘ais 6.’ Any one may fall into this blunder when the mere 
sound of the words causes him to treat two things as identical, 
which for his purpose are actually different, or vice versd. 

39. ‘Weare pressing hard upon the mere letter,’ more lit. 454 B 
‘We are following up our (principle), “different natures 
different vocations,” most energetically and contentiously 
(‘eristically’) in reliance on the mere (sound of the) word, 
but we have not in the least considered what form (‘eidos’) 


180 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


of “same” and “different” nature, and a form relevant to 
what, we meant to designate when we assigned,’ etc. The 
‘words’ in question are no doubt ‘sameness’ and ‘difference.’ 
Plato: might also have taken ‘man’ and ‘woman’ as the 
misleading terms, as it is their irrelevant difference which 
is at the root of the error, as he thinks it. 

454C 160. 10. ‘Whether bald men and long-haired men.’ If 
sameness and difference exclude each other, then no things 
that have any difference can have any point in common. 
Thus the mere word ‘ different’ will suffice to keep them apart 
in every respect. ‘To get a meaning, we ask ‘ what difference 
have you in view ?’ 

17. ‘Except for the reason that,’ etc., more lit. ‘except for 
the reason that we were not then postulating our ‘‘ same” and 
“ differing ” nature 7” general, but were confining ourselves to 
the particular form (eidos) of variation and resemblance which 
was relevant to the vocations in question.’ There seems to be 
a circular argument in saying ‘difference of nature is proved 
by difference of work’ and ‘difference of work is to be 
assigned according to difference of nature.’ But in all 
classification this circle is inevitable. The principles which 
prescribe what ought to be counted essentially different are only 
discovered by comparing a whole region of phenomena to- 
gether, and seeing what zs different in such a way that, by 
counting it so, one can organise the whole region conveniently. 
Here the region of phenomena are the needs and capacities 
of members in a community. 

22. ‘Two men who were mentally qualified for the medical 
profession.’ There is a doubtful reading, but the meaning 
amounts to this. Jowett, more literally, ‘a physician and one 
who is in mind a physician.’ ‘Work’ or final cause, and 
‘form’ or definition, and in some usages ‘nature,’ tend to 
coincide in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle: cf. Section 
20 above, and note on 55. 4, 370 A. We are inclined to 
remonstrate that it is a truism to say that two people with 
minds fit for being physicians have in this respect the same 


BOOK V. 181 


nature, when the question is wat sameness in nature fits 
people for the same occupation, etc. But the only clue is 
(see previous note) to elicit the system of functions and of 
qualities pari passu by comparing the whole data of needs 
and of capacities. 


160. 41, 455 A—I63. 10, 456 C. 

When the alleged difference of nature is referred to the 
standard of particular vocations and of the qualities needed 
jor guardianship, it is not found to justify the present usage, 
which is against nature, and a reform ts therefore practicable. 


Sect. 52. 


160. 43. ‘Connected with the organisation of a state,’ more 455 A 


2? 


lit. ‘about the equipment of a “‘polis”’ (civic society). I do 
not think that the original rules out private life and the family 
at starting, as our term ‘ state’ does. 


161. 14. ‘One man possesses talents for’ a particular study, B 


lit. ‘something.’ An important definition of the ‘Euphues,’ 
the person whose nature is favourable to such and such a 
pursuit. Aristotle’s £thics, iil. 5, 17, criticises Plato’s view of 
the ‘ Euphues’ (‘ well-born’ in Peters’ translation) in the fullest 
sense. The description here is plainly a case of the rule for 
determining function, close of Book 1.: ‘The function of 
anything is that which can be done with it best or exclusively.’ 
Facility, origination, and apt seconding of mind by body, are 
the marks of one who is ‘ well-born’ to a certain pursuit. 


40. ‘Occupations which comprehend the ordering of a state,’ D 


a narrower expression than that at the beginning of the Section. 
Plato’s language does not deny that within the same general 
citizen-functions departments might exist more suitable to 
one sex than the other. But he does not suggest it, excepting 
perhaps in the words ‘the lighter parts,’ 164. 9, 457 A. 

42. ‘But natural gifts are to be found here and there’ ; 
better, and more lit., ‘ But the natures (viz., those suitable to 
- particular vocations) are similarly distributed among both 
(kinds of) creatures (animals).’ 

44. ‘And so far as her nature is concerned.’ The 


456A 


Sect. 53. 


456 D 


E 


182 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


emphasis is much less one-sided in the original: ‘and woman 
(speaking of her as a class) is qualified by nature for all 
occupations, and so also is man, but in all,’ etc. Obviously 
the original might be taken to suggest an extension of man’s 
functions as against the idea that certain arts and industries 
are peculiarly the property of women. 

162. 12. ‘Have qualifications for gymnastic exercises.’ 
The guardian qualities, like other aptitudes, are distributed 
among women just as among men. 

27. ‘But only various degrees of weakness aud strength,’ 
rather, ‘except in so far as the one is naturally weaker and 
the other stronger.’ This is the only pervading difference 
between the sexes which Plato admits, at least as relevant to 
the duties of citizenship. We may be disposed to think that 
in this he was blind to essential facts of human nature. But 
it should be borne in mind that he was in presence of a system 
all but Oriental in its seclusion of women and exclusion of 
them from a part in life. The sum and substance of his con- 
tention was in short that women have souls as much as men. 
There was extraordinary insight in his judgment that it 
was the existing system which in truth was ‘contrary to 
nature,’ 163. 2, 456 Cc. 


163. 11, 456 C—I64. 19, 457 B. 


Being practicable, the identity of citizen-function for the two 
sexes is desirable, because it makes the fullest use of the 
capacities of members of soctety. 


163. 27. ‘In our ideal state.’ This word ‘ideal’ has 
sO many vulgar associations in everyday thought that it 
should be avoided where not strictly required. There is no 
term employed by Plato which conveys the same mixed 
meaning of ‘unreal’ and ‘superlatively excellent.’ The 
Greek here simply means ‘in the city which we were con- 
structing.’ 

38. ‘Can there be anything better for a state than that it 


BOOK V. 183 


should contain,’ etc. The point is that by educating for the 
highest functions all women of the necessary ability, selecting 
them from the whole community as was explained II4. 415 
above, the number of those able to live the best life and to 
lead society in the right path will be greatly increased, which 
is both beneficial to the commonwealth, and is a necessary 
embodiment of the principle that every nature is to find in 
society its full development. 

164. 6. ‘Must bear their part in war.’ It is impossible to 457 A 
judge how far Plato was serious in this suggestion, which the 
lessons of chivalry and romance have made inconceivable to 
civilised man. It is important, however, to put the matter on 
its right ground. The rational horror which is now aroused 
by the idea of women acting an combatants seems to be 
mainly justified by the demoralising consequences of organised 
physical violence exercised by those who on the whole 
are physically the weaker, and inevitably, therefore, exercised 
also against them without any reserve or consideration. 
But there seems to be no_ justification for excluding 
physical courage from the ideal of womanliness or for 
attempting to refuse to women the privilege of facing pain 
and danger so far as these are the ordinary lot of humanity 
outside the range of systematic personal violence. Plato, 
in assigning to them the function of war, is certainly not 
more wrong on the one side than those who would exclude 
them from all arduous and perilous life on the other. 
The need for his extreme view may perhaps be taken as 
established by the survival of its opposite after so many 
centuries. 

g. ‘ The lighter parts.’ This phrase might be pressed as 
recognising after all a certain division of labour between 
the sexes. 

11. ‘The man who laughs.’ This is a good example of 
the permanent applicability of Plato’s ideas, which his extreme 
plain-speaking is actually apt to hide from us. The adapta- 
tion of female costume for athletic or practical requirements 


457 B 


Sect. 54. 


457 C 


D 


184 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


has always a tendency to provoke the peculiar wit of certain 
minds. 

17. ‘The useful is noble and the hurtful base.’ ‘Useful,’ 
rather ‘profitable’ or ‘advantageous.’ The sentiment is 
much in the vein of Socrates as described in the Memorabilia. 
We must not construe it in the technical sense of modern 
Utilitarianism, in which useful = productive of pleasure. The 
Greek use is larger, and simply implies conduciveness to a 
recognised purpose. 


164. 20, 457 B—I70. 27, 461 E. 


The second of the three waves. Abolition of the family, that 
is, of all permanent grouping, according to conjugal or parental 
relations, within the social whole. Nature of the arrangement. 


164. 33. ‘The last law.’ The question of woman’s 
employment cannot be touched without in some degree 
affecting family life, for good or evil. 

36. ‘That. these women shall be.’ The regulation appears 
to be confined to the guardian class, like that of the com- 
munity of property. The comparison which is sometimes 
made between Plato’s guardians and a monastic order forgets 
the broad basis of comradeship between the sexes in all work 
and play by which Plato’s suggestion anticipates the Abbey 
of Thelema (see 166. 458). For the regulation itself, it should 
be noted how wholly it is opposed in spirit to a mere laxity 
in which all private inclinations are supposed to be gratified. 
The impossible condition that parents and children are not 
to know each other, is meant to tear up by the roots all 
tendency to quasi-family relations, which would flourish under 
a merely ‘free’ system. 

165. 4. ‘I think no one could deny.’ This is partly 
humorous paradox, partly a just insistence on the desirable- 
ness of that state of things to which Plato is proposing a 
short cut by inconceivable methods. He saw clearly that - 
family life as organised in his day at Athens deprived society 


BOOK V. 185 


of the services of half its members. Not enough has been’ 
made, in discussing this question, of the few words, 166. 458, 
which portray the free and equal companionship of the sexes, 
and their co-operation in the whole guardian life, ze. in 
all higher duties and interests. He might well pronounce 
that there could not be two opinions as to the desirability 
of such a state of things when contrasted with existing con- 
ditions. 

28. ‘I am desirous of putting off—the question of possi- 458 B 
bility.’ Surely this amounts to saying, ‘ Listen to my plan, 
and you will gather the gist of my meaning and the nature 
of the advantage which I have in view. The possibility of 
catrying out these particular enactments is a secondary 
question.’ And in fact, when the question of possibility is 
reached, the whole horizon of the discussion is widened to 
infinity, the Hellenic city gives place to the philosophic 
commonwealth, and the realisation of the plan is referred to 
the resources of a political science as yet non-existent. 

166. 4. ‘Will endeavour to carry out their spirit.’ The C 
translation is quite right. Observe, as throwing light on the 
meaning of ‘imitate,’ that the Greek runs (will yield obedience) 
‘in some cases, viz., those which we leave to them, zmitating 
the laws we give them.’ 

12. ‘Both sexes will live together’ (see note on 165. 4 
above). This is only a side light on the life of the guardians, 
but it suffices to emphasise the idea of equality and companion- 
ship between the sexes. 

27. ‘The marriages which are most for the public good,’ E 
lit. ‘most advantageous.’ A protest against a purely 
superstitious idea of sanctity, and an accentuation of an 
aspect of duty in the marriage union in its bearing on the 
excellence of human beings, are fully in the spirit of the 
saying ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the 
Sabbath.’ On the conception of duty to abstain from 
marriage by reason of hereditary infirmity, see Jowett, Intro- 
duction to Republic, exci. 


186 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


459 A 33. ‘Do you breed from all alike.’ An appeal to the 
acknowledged facts of animal nature (as above, 61. 375). It 
is interesting to find Plato observing the practice of breeders, 
which has played so important a part in the science of this 
century. The unquestionable truth which Plato has in mind 
hardly admits of application to human beings except nega- 
tively in well defined cases (which are, however, in certain 

_ classes very numerous) of abnormal infirmity, which is often 
both mental and physical. Jowett, Z¢, points out the 
uncertainty of all considerations on which we might be 
disposed to rely in criticising the unions of normal men and 
women. We cannot, as Plato well knew (213. 496, and 355. 
609), reduce the higher mental and moral qualities to cases 
of physical health, which is the only plain and simple criterion. 
The achievements of the physically infirm are a striking fact 
of the modern world. Nor do we know how identical or 
different qualities react on each other when brought into 
union, nor is the hereditariness of all infirmity an established 
truth. It is worth noticing that the remarkable energy of 
men who are physically infirm is probably often due to 
what in popular language we must call the reaction of the 
mind against a bodily defect, a case of his own doctrine 
(99. 26, 402) which Plato is ‘not ideal enough’ to 
appreciate. 

C 167. 15. ‘Obliged to use medicine’: cf. 72. 382 and 80. 
389. This humorous passage plainly indicates the impossi- | 
bility of the arrangement. 

460A 168. 4. ‘Keep the population at the same point.’ There 
is a certain analogy between Plato’s time and our own in the 
fact that the great burst of Greek colonisation had long before 
parcelled out the lands available for settlement under existing 
conditions, and any great expansion of population presented 
itself as a cause of embarrassment to governments. At the 
same time, with the example of Sparta and of the Athenian 
losses in the great war before him, Plato is thinking as 
much of maintaining the number as of controlling it. Any 


BOOK V. f 187 


self-adaptation of population to the means of existence seems 
to be beyond Plato’s horizon. 

28. ‘The general nursery.’ They would all be ‘institution C 
children,’ in whom, as a rule, certain defects are noted arising 
from an artificial and monotonous mode of life, even if the 
high mortality referred to in Jowett’s Introduction at this 
point can be avoided. 

34. ‘In some mysterious and unknown hiding-place.’ This 
passage (and 170. 7, 461 below) plainly indicates the 
practice of exposure of children, and worse. II4. 415 above 
gives no hint of this. The high mortality of young children 
to-day suggests that we are superior to the ancients more in 
theory than in practice. If our practice carried out our 
theory, especially if we superseded parental responsibility, we 
might find that Plato understood Darwinism better than we. 
Can any race safely arrest selection? It is quite conceivable 
that the actual infant mortality on the ancient system might 
be less than ours at present. On the loss to the common- 
wealth by exposure of children for the cause of bodily infirmity, 
see note 166. 33, 459 A. Theological disputes about the 
fate in another life of children dying unbaptized indicate the 
path by which the modern mind has been led, through the 
dualistic doctrine of soul, to a deeper respect for human life : 
cf. Aristotle, Po/. vii. 16, and note that Aristotle insists on 
the necessity of home nurture for children up to the age of 
seven. 

169. 3. ‘A very easy business.’ ‘And so it should be.’ 
Contrast the direction in which Rousseau’s influence operated. 
Plato is protesting against the woman’s absolute absorption in 
the family, Rousseau against her neglect of that, which, in the 
family, is of vital importance to society. 

32. ‘ Under cover of darkness’: contrast Edmund in Zear. 461 B 
Note how Plato’s scheme is the very antipodes of romantic 
‘freedom.’ 

170. 6. ‘To do their best, if possible.’ See note 168. 34, C 
460 c above. 


188 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


Sect. 55. 170. 28, 461 E—I77. 5, 466 D. 


Unity, as the greatest good of society, illustrated by comparison 
with the individual mind in respect of its unity of feeling. 
Abolition of private property among guardians a mere corollary 
of abolition of household, which ts condition of unity in feeling. 
Happiness of guardians. 


461E 170. 31. ‘In keeping’ and ‘ quite the best’; this is the dis- 
cussion of expediency which was to be admitted before that 
of possibility, 165. 34, 458 B. 

462A 36. ‘As the highest perfection,’ literally ‘the greatest good.’ 
‘Perfection’ has an echo of ethical dogma which nothing in the 
Greek suggests. So, four lines down, ‘perfection’ is simply ‘good.’ 

I7I. 3. ‘A multitude of states instead of one’: cf. I2I. 9, 
422 E above. 

4. ‘ Higher perfection ’=‘ greater good.’ 

B_ 8 to 15. ‘Community,’ opposed to ‘isolation’ or ‘ private- 
making.’ Plato does not go round through the feeble modern 
circuit of ‘altruism.’ The pleasing or painful event, befalling 
any element of society, or society itself, is directly a pleasing 
or painful event befalling the mind which identifies itself with 
society. Cf. for a relevant case Demosth. de Corona, 217: 
‘But if he (Aeschines) did not join (in rejoicing), does he not 
deserve a thousand deaths, since that which made all others 
glad was a pain to him alone?’ 

C 18. ‘Simultaneously,’ probably ‘on the same occasion,’ see 
instance from Demosthenes above. Plato is speaking rather of 
one person’s concern for events affecting any of the community. 
Aristotle in criticising him speaks as if ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’ 
were primarily terms applied to children or property. 

25. ‘Similarly to the same objects.’ ‘Objects, of course, is 
not in the Greek: literally, ‘To the same in the same’ (cases 
or relations). Cf. ‘ simultaneously’ above ; the language 
seems intentionally to echo the principle of non-contradiction 
in Book 1v., which can be taken as a definition of unity. If 
Aeschines, ¢.g., says of any event ‘It is my pain,’ while other 


BOOK V. 189 


citizens are saying of the same event at the same time ‘It is 
not my pain but my pleasure,’ then, just as with desire and 
reason, Aeschines and the others are different parts of the 
whole to which they belong, and which, if its parts actually 
conflict, is not at one with itself. 

27. ‘Nearest to the condition of’ one human being. This 
passage is probably the earliest description of the mind as a 
systematic whole recognising itself as one in all its elements 
though distinct from each of them, and it also originates the 
comparison between a mind thus regarded, and society as a 
spiritual unity. Compare Galatians, iii. 28, ‘Ye are all one 
man (R.V.) in Christ Jesus,’ and 1. Cor. xii. r2. As in most 
first-rate comparisons, the terms compared are ultimately 
grades of the same thing, mind being really incapable of 
exclusive individuality. I subjoin an alternative rendering, 
as literal as possible, simply to bring out certain points of 
interest. ‘ And (this is the city) which comes nearest to one 
human being. Thus, when a finger of one of us is struck, the 
whole community which stretches throughout the body up to 
the soul into one system, that of the ruling (part) therein (in the 
soul), feels it, and all of it at once has pain as a whole together 
because part is hurt, and so we say,’ etc. Note (i.) that the 
one system (literally ‘syntax’ = arranging together) is de- 
scribed as belonging to the ruling element of the soul, z.e. the 
reason: 7.¢., the soul is only a fully conscious system in pro- 
portion as it is focussed or centred in reason, which zs the 
unity of mind as doing justice to all its parts. (ii.) It is in 
virtue of this unity of intelligence that the whole /ee/s itself as 
one in its parts and yet more than any part. Nothing is 
more naively contrary to fact than to represent Plato’s view of 
mind as an intellectualism which neglects feeling, though it is 
true that he is not content with mere or uneducated feeling. 
(iii.) The theory may be regarded as an explanation of 
the simple phrase of common life which fortunately has just 
the same outline in Greek and in English: ‘The man has a 
pain in his finger.’ It is a good example of the direct relation 


190 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


between sound philosophic analysis and the phenomena em- 
bodied in language and other creations of man. The point 
is that the feeling belongs to the man or mind as a whole, 
although it is definitely referred to a part within that whole. 
Aristotle, as is frequently the case with him, seems to miss the 
full point of this passage in his definite allusion to it, although 
his own theory rests upon the same ultimate basis. Observe, 
finally, that the primary question is of community zz pleasure 
and pain here and throughout this section. 

462 E 172. 4. ‘Go back to our state’ and compare it with what 
Aristotle calls the ‘hypothesis,’ z.e. the postulate or principle 
which has been accepted as criterion. 

463A 11. ‘Magistrates,’ literally ‘rulers,’ the same word which 
figures in the discussions of Book 1. 

BRB 25. ‘Servants,’ literally ‘ slaves.’ 
c 32. ‘As a stranger,’ literally ‘as another’s’: cf. 271. 21, 
462 Cc. 

173. 3. ‘To act in every instance’; this is to meet a criti- 
cism such as that of Aristotle when he says in effect that 
the ‘mine’ and ‘not-mine’ applied to relationships will be 
mere fictions, used in a collective but not in an individual 
sense. ‘Better to have a real cousin than a fictitious son.’ 
Plato says here ‘habit and training shall make it a reality.’ 
That is the question. Of course a general respect of young for 
old and a general interest of old in young is desirable, and 
was embodied in the legislation of Sparta (see 174-5. 465). 

463 E 20. ‘It is well with mine.’ Here, no doubt, it is implied 
that the supposed relationships were to be the basis of interest, 
but the point is; as the next sentence shows, the extension and 
vitality of the interest itself. After all, not all the lads in the 
city would be counted as ‘ my sons’ by any one of the elder 
men according to 170. 461, but all were to be counted as 

‘mine’ by civic affection. 

464A 22. ‘A general sympathy’; the term sympathy recalls very 
various and obscure modern theories, and it is better not to 
employ it in Plato’s simple and clear account : literally, ‘ Did 


BOOK V. 191 


we not say that with this conception and expression there 
follow pleasures and pains (felt) in common?’ ze. the com- 
munity of pleasures and pains, as above described, in a social 
‘me,’ which, like the so-called individual ‘ me’ (in which it is 
ultimately an element) recognises itself as one throughout a 
number of manifestations. The commonplace difficulty that 
there is no social sensorium distinct from the individual 
organism, is thoroughly met by Plato’s comparison if rightly 
understood. 

32. ‘To the fact that our guardians,’ a condition of the 
‘community in pleasure and pain.’ 

37. ‘ The relation of a body to its members ’—a living, feel- 
ing, and thinking body, ze. a mind. 

40. ‘ Highest perfection’ as above, literally ‘greatest good.’ 

174. 2. ‘We said that—all private property must be for- 
bidden,’ 116. 416. Note the comparatively small space: and 
attention devoted to the question of private property. The 
proposal made is a corollary from Plato’s treatment of the 
household, and is not by itself one of the three great ‘ waves’ 
or ‘paradoxes of the Republic.’ In a modern treatise this 
relation is generally reversed ; the problem of ownership is 
treated in its industrial and economic bearings, and the 
effect on the family (the retention of which is usually presup- 
posed) is a corollary from the conditions thought best for 
industrial organisation. Plato apparently would not care for 
an economic communism in which the family was to be re- 
tained as a centre of private pleasures and pains. It is quite 
true, however, that a liberal interpretation of this and the 
following paragraph, in connection with Books vim. and Ix., 
suggests that he’held economic evil, ¢.g. a growth of pauperism, 
to be ultimately inseparable from the introduction of private 
property among the ruling class. Nor had he any tendency 
to go back from his present standpoint, but rather to extend 
it. See Zaws, 739 B-D, cited in Introduction. 

13. ‘Applying the term ‘ mine” each to a different object.’ 
Cf. I7I. 25, 462 cand note. Here the insertion of ‘object’ 


464 B 


464 D 


E 


465A 


192 ‘COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


is justified by the context, though it is still the resultant 
pleasure and pain to which attention is mainly drawn. 

19. ‘Causing them on the contrary,’ etc., or, perhaps, ‘ caus- 
ing them on the contrary, in virtue of a single conception of 
what is “‘one’s own,” being all concerned with the same 
(object), to share so far as possible in identical affection of 
pleasure and pain.’ ‘Identically’ or ‘simultaneously affected’ 
represents the Greek adjective ‘ homopathés,’ which seems to 
indicate a more genuine solidarity than the terms ‘sumpathés, 
sumpatheia,’ not, or hardly, used in the great Greek philoso- 
phers, from which our ‘ sympathy’ is derived. ‘ Homopathés’ 
gives the idea of sharing in one affection which may be in a 
single self, ‘sumpathés’ of repeating or copying in one self 
the affection which is primarily in another. Cf. the verb 
‘sumpaschein,’ 350. 26, 605 D, ‘sympathise with the sufferer,’ 
of our feelings in attending to an actor or poet. ‘Sumpatheia’ 
seems to be in the main a Stoic term, and our ‘sympathy’ 
often covers psychological individualism. 

28. ‘All those feuds.’ Aristotle’s summary criticism is that 
none of these evils come from several property, but only from 
the badness of human nature; and he adds that associated 
owners quarrel much more than separate owners. See Intro- 
duction. 

34. ‘To defend oneself,’—a curious tempering of Socialism 
with Anarchy. 

36. ‘ Recognising the necessity.’ Is it not rather ‘imposing 
a necessity for keeping oneself in training’? Socrates in the 
Memorabilia sharply criticises one of his young friends for 
being in bodily condition ‘like a private person,’ z.e. unfit for 
service or self-defence. 

175. 1. ‘ Will be authorised’; a Spartan rule, and very pro- 
bably common in Greece. It is of course in some degree 
embodied in the manners of most countries. Formal rules 
like this are convenient in the absence of more positive 
grounds of action, of which Plato here mentions one, and in a 
highly organised society innumerable others emerge, by which, 


BOOK V. 193 


and not by any progressive iniquity, the primitive importance 
of age is overlaid, and survives chiefly within the family. 

g. ‘Fear and shame,’—physical and moral fear, representing 
together the whole influence of the social order upon a Greek. 
‘Shame,’ the untranslatable term ‘aidds,’ which might also be 
rendered ‘honour’ or ‘ self-respect.’ 

22. ‘Evils of a very petty nature.’ Perhaps we might ven- 465 C 
ture to say that here as elsewhere Plato is ‘not ideal enough.’ 
Though undoubtedly grave evils and losses may attach to our 
daily worries, yet it would seem that in the true ideal they 
must be conquered and not run away from. They constitute 
the discipline of life, and the contact by which we feel 
and act upon the realities of character in ourselves and in 
others. If ever we meet with a fugitive and cloistered virtue, 
it does not impress us as having a hold upon the real world. 

176. 7. ‘Some time back we were accused’: see Book try. E 
beginning and notes. 

19. ‘Much more glorious and desirable.’ This could only 466A 
be urged with any show of reason upon a people whose 
current idea of happiness included energy and devotion. Cf. 
Herodotus, i. 30, cited in Introduction. The ‘preservation 
of the whole state,’ 176. 1, 465 D, was just the ‘victory ’ the 
achievement of which a Greek citizen would currently accept 
as acrowning happiness. What Plato does is to interpret and 
extend the conception of ‘ preservation of the state’ by making 
it equivalent to securing the highest life for society. 

26. ‘In such a way that they cease to be guardians’: cf. B 
Book tv. beginning. This would imply that they had lost the 
governing conception of the whole to which their natures and 
functions were relative, and were consequently acting in a 
way incompatible with the maintenance of the true or natural 
system in their own souls. See 149. 443 above. The ‘silly 
and childish notion’ (lit., opinion or seeming) is of course 
just one of the illusions typified by the shadows in the cave 
(Book vi. beginning, see above on 97. 402), and is illustrated 
in all its grades by the descending scale of Books vit. and 

N 


466 C 


D 


Sect. 56. 


467 D 


194 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


1x., which begins by the rulers doing what is here referred to, 
as indeed, he says, the Spartans had done. Cf. 272. 545, and 
275. 548 below. 

36. ‘Women—on same footing as men.’ This description 
(cf. 166. 458 above) is hardly appreciated at its full value, 
because we do not apply ourselves to filling up the details 
which it necessarily involves. It is a complete comradeship 
of the sexes in the higher duties of society, only allowing 
(see above, 164. 457) for the lesser physical strength of 
women. 

38. ‘In bearing children’—a slip in rendering—should be 
‘about children’; plainly it refers to the means adopted for 
preventing the entire absorption of women in the care of 
their children. 

177. 4. ‘The natural relation’ (see 163. 2, 456). He 
closes the discussion with an emphatic assertion that this 
equal companionship in the work and interests of life is the 
natural relation of the sexes, whereas, as he said above (Ac.), 
it is the existing relation that is unnatural. Plainly after such 
an assertion the question of possibility can only apply to 
special forms of realisation. 


177. 6, 466 D—184..9, 471 C. 


further regulations, partly as criticism of existing social 
usages. 


177. 10. ‘Conditions of possibility,’ and 13, ‘As for their 
war-like operations.’ Socrates protracts the conversation, like 
a man who cannot be got to come to the point. Cf. 184. 10, 
471 C. 

24. ‘You have doubtless observed in the various trades’ ; 
a hint of the true ‘technical education’ that would exist 
throughout a single society, in which industries were largely 
hereditary, not as caste, but by natural sequence. 

178. 25. ‘Set officers over them’: an important criticism. 
The Athenian ‘ pedagogues,’ here rendered ‘tutors,’ who took 


BOOK V. 195 


the young people to their classes and generally supervised 
them through the day, were slaves. Plato would assign this 
office, of course re-modelled, to the very best of the citizens. 
In the pre-eminence given to war as the occupation of a 
gentleman, Plato is following the mind and necessities of his 
age, and our just objection to militarism—a thing in its 
modern significance far removed from the spirit of Plato’s 
citizen soldiery—must not blind us to the high relative value 
of such a training. (See above on ‘Gymnastic,’ 100. 404.) 

179. 9. ‘One of the soldiers deserts his rank or throws 468 
away his arms,’ z.¢. his shield, which was too heavy to carry 
off in flight. Cf. the Athenian’s oath, ‘I will not disgrace my 
sacred shield. I will not desert my fellow soldier in the 
ranks.’ Athens, and probably every Greek state, as well as 
Sparta, had laws inflicting loss of citizenship as a penalty for 
acts of cowardice in the field. Our military discipline is. of 
course far more summary, and a system separate from the 
ordinary law. The regulations which follow down to 180. 20, 
468 §, ‘promote their training,’ probably represent to some 
extent the working of natural competition under any social 
system, but this becomes animalised, not spiritualised, by dis- 
tinct enactment. Onlythe familycan trulyspiritualise theanimal 
facts of life, and the attempt to dispense with it gives them 
greater and not less prominence. The utilitarian turn given 
to the Homeric honours of the banquet is meant to throw a 
touch of comedy and unreality over these suggestions. 

180. 22. ‘Give out that—belong to the golden race.’ Cf.E 
mythical apologue at close of Book m1. All these customs 
and beliefs are to be matters of enactment, the sanction of 
the oracle having the effect of placing them beyond criticism. 
In this there seems to be a distinct undertone of tendency to 
justify religious beliefs by their utility if not to account for 
them in this way. Cf. Book 111. zw7¢. of certain beliefs about 
the other world, ‘they are not true and do no good.’ No 
canonisation, such as Plato here suggests, is referred to in the 
funeral speech of Pericles. 


196 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


469 C 181. 13. ‘From a prudent fear of being reduced to bondage 
by the barbarians.’ We should state our reasons in a more 
humanitarian form. But we should bear in mind that Greek 
civilisation was to Plato much what white civilisation is to 
us, and speculations as to the power of white civilisation to 
maintain itself against ‘inferior’ races are not without interest 
for us to-day. ‘The Persian power never ceased for very long 
together to press upon the Greeks in one way or another. 

15. ‘To have Greek slaves in their possession’ as Sparta 
had, with terrible results. . 
E 182, 1. ‘To dedicate them there’: a regular Greek practice. 

470 B18. ‘War and sedition.’ We are apt to think civil war the 
most terrible kind of war, just because it is a laceration of a 
single organism. But it does not follow that it is the most 
relentless kind, although in Greece at least this was so far the 
case that we are surprised at Plato’s seeming to set up civil 
war as the preferable type. For he does not exactly say, what 
the whole passage implies, that it is a gain to extend the 
area within which all war zs regarded with the horror that 
belongs to civil war. He does, however, distinctly assert that 
the civilised world as such—the Greek world—is to be 
regarded as a single commonwealth within which all war is to 
be conceived of as civil war. Accepting the parallel above 
suggested between white civilisation and Greek civilisation, 
Plato’s view is.much nearer our standpoint towards ‘inferior’ 
races than we like to admit, and as regards our attitude to 
civilised nations, it is on a level which we are only just begin- 
ning to attain. There is a good deal of cant in the common 
assertion that Plato had no general conception of humanity in 
our sense. If the interests of a savage tribe appear to us, as 
they usually do, to conflict with those of ‘civilisation,’ what 
becomes of our humanity? Really, of course, humanity is 
not a mere numerical idea, and the question is by what we 
measure it and to what it can be hostile. Plato is going on 
his view of what is best because most distinctively human in 
humanity (see close of Book 1.) as we go on ours. 


BOOK V. 197 


183. 16. ‘A Grecian city’: see Sect. 48 above. We are 470E 
here between the second and third of the ‘three waves,’ which 
determine the whole structure of Book v. Therefore a new 
beginning in writing the Repudlic cannot have been made near 
this point, unless the whole of Book v. has been remodelled. 
On the other hand, down to this point, the author is still speak- 
ing of a Hellenic commonwealth, and it is only through the 
subsequent discussion on possibility that he passes to the more 
remote conception of the city of philosophers. If therefore 
it is suggested that a later portion of the dialogue begins with 
Book v., the division thus made would not coincide with the 
transition from the Hellenic to the philosophic city. It is 
noteworthy that the conditions which most distinctly remove 
the Republic from the province of literal realisation are first 
introduced by Plato as the conditions of its possibility, ze. 
of its hypothetical reality. This surely almost amounts to 
directing the interpreter neither to look for literal fulfilment 
nor again to lay the conception aside as ideal in the sense of 
chimerical, but to expect the verification of its essential points 
in proportion as the awakened intelligence—this is the root con- 
dition insisted on—shall assume the control of human affairs. 

26. ‘Like persons who are presently to be reconciled’ 471 A 
(see below 36), ‘those few who were the authors of the 
quarrel.’ The imputations of guilt and treason which thus 
characterise civil war seem to us to make it more and not less 
_ bitter than ordinary war, and we look for alleviation rather to 
stricter rules of the game as regards non-combatants and pro- 
perty. But no doubt, except when the disruption of a 
community is in question (and this Plato’s idea precisely 
negatives), all leading minds must feel in civil war that the 
object is to obtain a state of society in stable equilibrium, and 
therefore will abstain as far as possible from measures which 
tend to make that impossible. 

184. 3. ‘As the Greeks now behave to one another.’ Satire, 471 B 
with a suggestion that even behaviour towards ‘inferior races’ 
is not a matter of indifference. 


Sect. 57. 


472 B 


PART III 


THE PHILOSOPHIC CITY, 
OR, IDEAL MORALITY 


184. 10, 471 C—I86. 20, 473 B. 


Transition to the philosophic city, begun by discussing in what 
sense and under what conditions the system that has been 
described could be approximated to in actual life. The present 
Section treats of the only sense in which abstract conceptions can 
be realised in life, or general propositions in practice. The 
account of the Philosophic state, which is an expansion and in 
some degree a criticism of the Hellenic state, goes down to the 
close of Book VIZ. 


185. 11. ‘If we find out what justice is, shall we expect 
the character of a just man not to differ?’ Cf. 137. 20, 435 B, 
where it is pointed out that two things bearing a common 
name (the just man and the just state) are the same in respect 
of the quality indicated by that name. Here a different point 
is emphasised, viz., the distinction between a living individual 
and the quality indicated by an abstract term. This is how 
Plato at once and naturally envisages the problem of realisa- 
tion or possibility, and it ought to play a principal part in 
determining our interpretation of his attitude. An attribute 
cannot exhaust the nature of a living concrete. ‘The char- 
acter of’ is an insertion which just obscures the meaning. 


More lit., ‘If we find out what justice is like, shall we expect 
198 


BOOK V. 199 


the just man to differ in no point from its very self, but to 
be in every respect the same as justice is.’ Note, in passing, 
the term ‘its very self,’ which corresponds to the ‘idea’ 
(eidos): cf. 137. These phrases plainly refer to an attribute 
as qualifying things, yet they reproduce the language which is 
constantly supposed to indicate an abstraction erected into a 
‘thing in itself.’ 

18. ‘ And the character of the perfectly just man as well as 472 C 
the possibility’; rather, probably with a slightly different read- 
ing, ‘and what the perfectly just man would be like if he did 
come to exist.’ 

21. ‘So that by looking upon the two men,’ etc., more lit., 
‘So that looking upon the two men, with respect to what they 
seem to us to be, in the way of happiness and its opposite’; 
this adds a point to that of the preceding sentence. The 
object of inquiry was not only of the nature of an attribute as 
opposed toa concrete person, but it was @ connection between 
attributes, viz., between goodness and happiness, the reality of 
which connection may even be habitually verified in everyday 
phenomena without the extreme cases which were taken as 
illustrations making their appearance at all. We must not be 
confused by the fact, which is often rightly insisted on, that 
in the Republic Plato does aim at exhibiting justice as em- 
bodied in the living concrete of the social whole. For it is 
still true that this concrete is relatively abstract and illus- 
trative, sketched in so far as to explain the essentials of 
‘justice,’ and no further. It does not absorb the detail even 
of ancient life, much less of modern civilisation. It is, as he 
says, a pattern or illustration—schematic or diagrammatic. 
Note that the state of the dad man as regards happiness is 
elaborately depicted in Books viii. and rx. 

27. ‘To demonstrate the possibility of these things’ (add) D 
‘coming to pass,’ 7.e. of their actual occurrence. Extreme 
or ‘pure’ cases have been considered by analysis for the sake 
of illustration. The connection, as with every causal or 
essential relation, is unimpeached by variation, so long as the 


200 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


variations are ‘concomitant’ in the sense required by the 
law. 

31. ‘Who has painted a beau ideal,’ lit., ‘who has painted 
what the most beautiful human being would be like,’ the same 
phrase as 18 above, ‘what the perfectly just man would be 
like”; and here we must understand, what is there expressed, 
‘if he did come to exist.’ Here, as above, the notion is of 
a conditional or hypothetical presentation for the purpose 
of emphasising certain fundamental connections as true of 
reality. In art such a treatment is ‘selective’ as in science it 
is ‘analytical’ or ‘ hypothetical.’ 

32. ‘Cannot prove that—might possibly exist.’ This is an 
interesting utterance in Plato, who professes to believe that 
art is tied down to making copies of commonplace reality 
which remain inferior to it. For the present purpose the 
question is, What relation to reality is implied for Plato in the 
presentation of the highest conceivable human beauty? 
Following out the spirit of the whole passage, we may observe 
that (i.) the connections of qualities must be true on the 
whole, and (ii.) the qualities themselves must be human, ze. 
must fall within certain recognisable limits. The slightest 
element of hypothesis or selection is enough to make the 
presentation impossible in everyday experience. But of 
course this does not prevent it from being true of reality 
under greater or less reservations. 

472 E 186. 1. ‘The true state of the case,’ viz., that we cannot 
show, and are not to be expected to show, a scientific or 
artistic abstraction existing in phenomenal reality. This argu- 
ment has special force as regards the Repudlic, in which we 
have observed that the principal deviations from ordinary 
possibility consist in abstractions, or short cuts to purposes 
which could only be attained in fact by ‘a more round-about 
route.’ A true estimate of the standpoint from which Plato 
regards the possibility of his ‘ideal,’ or, to use his own 
favourite term, his ‘ pattern’ or ‘illustration,’ would demand a 
just conception of the nature of the possible, as something 


a 


BOOK V. = OE 


affirmed to be real under a reservation or condition. (See 
Bradley’s Principles of Logic, p. 187.) On our knowledge as to 
the existence or partial existence of this condition, in any 
case before us, our whole estimate of the sense and degree in 
which the matter affirmed is possible must necessarily depend. 
Plato, therefore, in perfect logical order, when he turns to the 
question of possibility begins by explaining that between his 
abstraction and its realisation in historical fact there is un- 
doubtedly a condition interposed ; he then proceeds to state 
this condition (viz., a scientific treatment of politics), and sub- 
sequently to show, from the connection both of the ideal and 
of its condition with the central realities of life and mind, 
that the degree in which the condition is fulfilled will also be 
the degree in which the essentials of his ‘illustration’ will 
become historical fact. Our view as to the actual reality of 
his condition or postulate thus suggests to us ‘how’ and ‘in 
what respect,’ 3, we may by a fair interpretation look for the 
‘ greatest possibility’ of his ideal, ze. the point at which it may 
be affirmed of reality with the smallest reservation. 

7. A theoretical sketch.’ The paragraph runs more lit., 473 A 
‘Ts it possible for (things) to be done as they are said? Or 
is it according to nature that action should lay hold of truth 
(or ‘reality ’) less than speech?’ The Greek does not contain 
the vulgar antithesis of theory and practice, as suggested by 
the translation, but merely points out that things are easier 
said than done. Genuine ‘theory’ or complete vision of 
what is best would be a part of the practice or performance, 
which is so slow and difficult to bring about just because it is 
so great. Plato is not comparing theory and practice as such, 
e.g. as knowledge and life—the separation would be incon- 
ceivable to him—but simply what I can say at a given 
moment and what I can do at that moment—the fluency of 
speech and the drag of action. 

13. ‘Then do not impose upon me,’ more lit., ‘Then do 
not require this of me, to show what we went through in 
our account (or ‘story’ or ‘argument’) as coming to pass 


Sect. 58. 


473 B 


D 


202 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


completely in actual fact.’ The contrast is obviously not be- 
tween‘ ideal’ and ‘reality’ as such, but between the essentials 
indicated by the illustration and the detailed completeness 
requisite to make it more than a mere ‘ illustration.’ 


186. 22, 473 B—I88. 6, 474 C. 


The required condition of possibility is that political power 
and science tn the fullest sense of the word should come together 
in the same person or persons. Everything in this postulate 
turns upon the meaning of science or scientific person (‘philoso- 
pher’), and this accordingly has to be further examined, 


186. 25. ‘What is the smallest change.’ Plato, as already 
said, strictly follows the logic of possibility (see 1 above, 
472E note.) What is the minimum condition (that is, the 
essential condition, because anything superfluous would be 
accidental), the realisation of which would suffice to make 
society what we demand of it? If such a condition can be 
specified and is or becomes itself in any degree actual, the 
assertion conditioned by it so far expresses a real possibility. 

187. 2. ‘Unless political power and philosophy.’ This 
generalised statement, which contains the gist of the condition, 
is less often quoted than the picturesque and personal sug- 
gestion which precedes it. ‘In the same person,’ the Greek 
has the abstract neuter=‘in the same’ (‘organ’ or ‘part of 
society’), or simply ‘unless political power and the spirit of 
true science can be brought together’ (Jowett, ‘meet in one’). 

4. ‘Most of those minds—debarred from either.’ ‘From 
either’ is not in the Greek, but seems justified by 188. 1, 
474c. Thus, as so constantly happens, the first meaning 
conveyed to our ears by Plato’s saying as commonly rendered 
is the precise contrary of his real intention. ‘ Philosophers 
should be statesmen and statesmen philosophers’ means 
to an Englishman either that such men as Newton, Locke, 
Bentham, and Mill should be Cabinet Ministers or that 


ee 


BOOK V. 908 


Cabinet Ministers should be obliged to read books about 
evolution or metaphysics. But what Plato says is that neither 
a mere empiric nor one whose life is one-sidedly devoted to 
abstract research is fit to be trusted with political duties, and 
also that a specialised study of merely abstract questions unfits 
a man for the true grasp of life and character which is the 
centre of real philosophy. The philosopher, to him, is one 
who ‘sees life steadily, and sees it whole.’ We are not really 
to look for the fulfilment of Plato’s requirements in individual 
statesmen. His form of portrayal is half mythology, and 
therefore necessarily anthropomorphic. It is mainly in con- 
ditions which are impersonal or greater than personal, in the 
growth of the sciences of man, in the experience and practical 
knowledge and social self-consciousness represented by entire 
professions, by armies/of workers in the public interest, and 
by the Press, and in the logic of facts by which a general con- 
ception or standard of life is maintained and elevated, that we 
find the real analogy to Plato’s conception of the philosophy 
which was to make the statesman. The modern statesman is 
rather an instrument through which the conditions assert 
themselves than a source in which they originate. The office 
of Plato’s philosophic statesman, in short, is now in commis- 
sion, and the truth of his suggestion is, to expand his 
own generalisation of it, that somehow or other the best and 
deepest ideas about life and the world must be brought to 
bear on the conduct of social and political administration if 
any real progress is to take place in society. We rely much 
less on the complete intellectual conception and much more 
on the spirit of a community than Plato did, just because 
the notion of an indwelling unity, greater than the individual, 
which he suggested, has become so real to us in Christianity. 
In the largest sense it is religion which is the root of society, 
not mere science. 


38. ‘Give them our definition of philosophers,’ ze. the 474 B 


condition is ridiculed because it is understood in a sense 
precisely opposed to its real meaning. 


204 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


Sect. 59. 188. 7, 474 C—189. 41, 475 E. 


Distinction between the true lover and the amateur, leading up 
to the distinction between those who have and those who have not 
a grasp of reality. 


474C 188. ro. ‘Does not love one part of that object’; if this 
really refers to anything that went before, it must allude to the 
passage on correlative terms, ¢.g. 142. 40, 439 A. 

475 B 189. 6. ‘The whole class that the term includes,’ lit., ‘ the 
whole of this form’ (eidos): see reference in previous note. 
The ‘eidos’ here is simply the general character which is the 
object of desire; not, of course, confined to the idea as 
presented to the desiring mind, for there is nothing to suggest 
a psychological interpretation. It is the pure ingenuity of 
scholasticism either to say that ‘form’ as here referred to is 
itself considered to be a thing besides the things which it 
stands for, or to say that though it is not so in innumerable 
passages of this type, yet it is so in others, the terminology 
of which fades into that here employed by imperceptible 
gradations. 

9. ‘The philosopher or the lover of wisdom’; the ‘ philo- 
sophic’ element of mind has been from the first (see 63. 375) 
characteristic of the ‘ guardian’ class, and is now beginning to 
be expanded into its fullest meaning as the side of the mind 
which isin contact with the ultimate system and reality of the 
world. It is highly distinctive of Plato, and in harmony with 
the whole effect ascribed to the musical education, that the 
genuine philosophic nature should be designated through 
a comparison with the true lover. See Pater, Plato and 
Platonism, p. 155. 

C 22. ‘Every kind of knowledge’ ; the ‘rue scientific impulse 
is roughly described by its generality, especially (see previous 
paragraph) before critical experience has shown what lines are 
worth pursuing and what are not. This rough description 


‘ 
“A 
~ 


BOGK V. 205 


courts the objection of Glaucon, which evokes a more 
thoroughly grounded definition. 


28. ‘Lovers of sights—are philosophers,’ ze. if generality 475 D 


of interest is the test. We should realise Plato’s antithesis 
better by asking ourselves what is the true meaning of 
‘culture.’ We also have the people who are at every concert 
and every picture gallery, but refuse to undergo the exertion 
of unifying their ideas. The contrast follows the lines of 
logic in its divergent interpretations of the ‘universal.’ The 
universal may be taken as mere width of area, ‘superficial’ in 
the strictest sense, like a generic concept, in old-fashioned 
logic, compared with a specific concept. In this sense the 
universal is abstract and is more properly termed ‘general.’ 
Or it may be taken as thorough knowledge, tracing the matter 
in hand to its roots, and obtaining its width at the surface by 
a mastery of all the rarfiifications which spring from a con- 
nected set of data and principles. This is the true or 
concrete universal, like the biologist’s knowledge of ‘ plant’ or 
‘animal’ in the connected variety oftheir forms. The former 
kind of universality, Plato is about to show, is always self- 
contradictory and a world of confusion, because its elements 
have not gone through the process of being reduced to 
harmony; and those who live in it are ‘counterfeit philosophers.’ 


189. 42, 475 E—IQI. 15, 476 D. 
First distinction of * Science’ and ‘ Seeming’ (Knowledge and 
Opinion), ‘ Science’ being unified like the world of the waking 


intelligence, and ‘ Seeming’ resting in mere variety and confusion 
like the illusions of dreamland. 


Sect. 60. 


190. 1. ‘ Who love to see truth "—a corrected application of 475 E 
90. pp 


the term ‘lovers of sights’ above. ‘Those lovers of sights 
whose love is forthe vision of truth.” The term ‘truth’ is not 
so precisely restricted to a property of thought or assertion 
in Plato as in modern philosophy, the antithesis between 
knowledge and its object, which modern common sense 


e 


206 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


assumes, not being familiar to ancient thought. In the 
discussion that begins at this point it will often be difficult to 
distinguish ‘truth’ from ‘being’ and ‘reality.’ Of course 
these conceptions are closely connected, as the reader will see 
at once if he tries to explain what he means by ‘a fact.’ We 
even find modern men of science talking about the ‘ veracities 
of nature,’ which is a precise parallel to Plato’s occasional 
use of the term ‘truth’ as = reality. 

476A 9. ' Since beauty is the opposite of deformity, they are two 
things.’ From this point throughout Books vi. and vil., and 
again in Book x., we are dealing with the famous doctrine of 
Ideas or Forms, and it is all-important to read Plato’s text as 
simply and correctly as possible, interpreting it in the first 
instance by the primary requirements of philosophical thought, 
and dismissing from our minds the conceptions which have 
been derived from Aristotle’s account of the doctrine, from 
clearly mythical passages in Plato himself (as in the myth 
of the Phaedrus), and from vague echoes of Kantian ‘things- 
in-themselves.’ The definite renderings which I shall point 
out affect not only the English reader, but the Greek reader 
whose mind is imbued with current prejudices, as is plain from 
the fact of their being accepted by the distinguished authors 
of the translation on which we are commenting. In the 
present passage observe, first, the insertion of the innocent- 
looking word ‘thing.’ The vice which traditional prejudice 
ascribes to Plato’s ‘ideas’ is most shortly expressed by alleging 
that he treats a universal as a thing—an object among objects 
—and it is really a superlative audacity to insert in the text 
this word (which represents a fault of our own popular 
conceptions, and which never, I think, in the Greek refers to 
the form or idea), when practically the whole problem depends 
on its presence or absence. Jowett here omits it rightly. 
‘ They are two.’ 

‘12. ‘Each of them taken separately’ is one, not ‘one 
thing.’ 
16, ‘ And all general conceptions,’ lit., ‘all the forms.’ 


BOOK V. . 207 


17. ‘Each of them in itself is’ one, not ‘one thing.’ ‘In’ 
should be omitted; it carries a wholly unmeaning echo of 
Kant; ‘each of them itself is one.’ ‘But by the inter- 
mixture with,’ lit., ‘by their community with’ or ‘ participation 
in’; perhaps ‘by their entering into actions and bodies and 
each other.’ ‘Each other,’ because, e¢.g., justice is a form of 
goodness. 

19. ‘Each appears to be many things,’ lit., ‘each appears 
many.’ We have no right to say that appearance must involve 
illusion except in as far as it is taken to deny some truth or 
some element of reality. This Plato seems carefully to explain 
in what follows. 

21. ‘ By the help of this principle,’ more lit., ‘In this way, 
then, I distinguish,’ etc. It is essential to bear in mind, 
as an aid to understanding the distinction, the general 
description of the classes to which it applies, viz., people who 
are, and people who are not, capable of adjusting ideas to 
experience and to each other by a process of criticism. 

31. ‘ Beauty in itself.’ Jowett, ‘absolute beauty,’ lit., “beauty 476 B 
itself’; ‘in itself’ and ‘absolute’ have wholly unwarranted 
associations. 

34. ‘The independent contemplation of abstract beauty.’ 

I take it that this phrase conveys no meaning at all to an 
English ear. More lit., ‘Those who are able to approach 
beauty itself and look at it gua itself,’ ze. to understand what 
it is that makes’ a beautiful thing beautiful. The preposition 
which, conjoined with the word ‘itself,’ Davies and Vaughan 
render ‘abstract,’ I represent by ‘gwa’=‘ according to’ or ‘in 
respect of.’ Note that here it is only used where the attitude 
of the observer and not the mode of being of the content is 
in question, thus plainly pointing to intellectual selection in 
perceiving a concrete presentation. 

38. ‘ Recognises the existence of beautiful things, but dis- C 
believes in abstract beauty.’ Here we really have the word 
‘ things’ in the Greek as nearly as possible, though there is no 
quite general and direct equivalent for ‘things’ in classical 


Nd, 


Ne 


208 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


Greek, any more than there is for ‘word.’ The term here 
used means primarily ‘business’ or ‘affairs,’ and no doubt is 
meant to include material objects (which Plato sométimes 
mentions as ‘ bodies’), probably with character and action in 
addition. Observe that where the word is used, it is meant. 
Plato is speaking of people who apply the term ‘ beautiful’ to 
particular objects and cases, but are unable to realise what is 
meant by ‘beauty itself’? (not ‘abstract beauty’). Conse- 
quently, of course, their ideas on the subject are all in 
contradiction with each other. ‘They cannot follow,’ he 
says in the next line, if you try to explain it to them. The 
modern question about objective beauty, ze. whether any 
common property can be attributed to all beautiful objects as 
such, which certain eminent thinkers answer in the negative, 
illustrates this passage with extraordinary appositeness. Of 
course the modern controversy is partly whether the common 
property is zz the object as distinct from the perception of it. 
But still the illustration is to the point. 

42. ‘Is it not dreaming when—mistakes the likeness,’ etc., 
more lit., ‘ when any one—thinks what is like to any (thing), 
to be not (merely) like but the very self to which it is like.’ 
This comparison of the confused phases of common thinking 
to a dreamworld or world of illusions runs through the whole 
discussion from this point onward. In every illusion there is 
probably a nucleus of perception, an image of some kind, 
and the confusion of this with something else which it 
suggests is the essence of the mental state which Plato refers 
to. The confusion is only possible because the image or 
likeness which is its basis is not tested in all respects so as to 
ascertain its proper place in the context of experience, and 
this failure shows the mind to be so far inert or under limita- 
tion. Cf. the saying of Heraclitus: ‘The waking have one 
and the same world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a 
world of his own.’ 

I9I. 5. ‘Of one who acknowledges an abstract beauty,’ 
etc., more lit., ‘who acknowledges a certain self of beauty, and 


BOOK V. 209 


is able to discern both it and the (objects or cases) which have 
some of it in them, and neither takes that which has some of 
it for it, nor it for that which has some of it.’ Compare, as 
regards the word object or thing, 190. 9, 476 A and note. It 
is literally true that Plato is here describing and condemning 
that vulgar tendency to treat a universal idea as either a fiction 
or an isolable thing, either a mere group of objects or itself an 
object among others, which has been the means of fastening 
upon him one of the alternatives which he here explicitly 
repudiates in the name of the waking intelligence. If you 
treat ‘beauty’ as ‘a beautiful thing’ (as the doctrine of ideas 
is supposed to treat it), you are, he says, simply dreaming, 
like a man who takes a coat and hat to be a living person, 
or a child who takes a golden crown to be the essence of 
royalty. : 

The waking life is discriminating, and its world therefore 
coherent. 

12. ‘Mental process.’ The different words for intellect, 476 D 
science, reason, and the like, have as yet no technical force. 
The term thus rendered is quite general, though in Book v1. 
it is appropriated to the mathematical understanding. 

13. ‘Knowledge’; not the term which later became appro- 
priated to science in the strictest sense, and which is rendered 
science, 192. ff., but a word derived from the verb to know, 
and used here for the sake of its derivation. 

14. ‘Opinion, or ‘seeming’; the substantive corresponding 
to the everyday Greek phrase ‘it seems to me,’ and conveying 
a suggestion of difference from truth or reality; e.g., the 
substantive translated ‘appearances,’ 44. 42, 362 A above, is the 
word here rendered ‘ opinion.’ It includes, we might say, the 
seeming to me, which is my opinion, and the seeming to 
others, or their opinion, which is the ‘appearance’ presented 
by me to them. It seems to possess in common usage no 
special reference to sense-perception, as does the term from 
which our ‘phenomena’ is derived, and which directly con- 
notes presentation to sight, and in many cases implies a very 

O 


Sect. 61. 


476 E 
477 A 


210 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


strong certainty. There is a well-known grammatical rule in 
Greek that after the verb ‘seems’ there follows the infinitive 
‘fo be’ (good or bad, etc.), but after either ‘I know’ or ‘he 
is shown’ there must come the participle, ‘I know him Jeng 
bad,’ ‘ He is shown deing a rogue.’’ This illustrates the differ- 
ent xuance of the terms to a Greek mind. The connection 
between opinion and sense-perception is a logical theory of 
Plato’s, and not assumed in the word. 


IQI. 16, 476 E—IQ4. 41, 478 E. 


Exhaustive process to identify ‘opinion, in the only way in 
which a ‘faculty’ can be identified, viz., by the nature of its object- 
matter, described by anticipation as that which both ts and ts not. 


I9I. 20. ‘In an unsound state’; perhaps ‘is not quite sane.’ 

32. ‘Something that exists.’ The Greek here has the par- 
ticiple ‘ being,’ which admits of no distinction between being 
and existing, such as is given in Greek by the accent in the 
present indicative of the verb ‘to be,’ when it contains 
the predication and does not merely join subject to predicate. 
Of course all that is experienced in a certain sense ‘is,’ e.g. 
an illusion is a fact in the mind, and so on; but the object of 
knowledge is always more than the mere mental fact; this indi- 
cates something beyond itself, or could not be true; and 
further, the known ov/y zs, and never ‘is not,’ ze. it does not 
contradict itself or become inconsistent with itself. 

‘How could a thing that does not exist be known ?’ better, 
‘How could what does not,’ etc. All that is known is 
existent. This is a truism: see last paragraph. The form of 
assertion, which characterises knowledge, consists in investing 
the mental fact with a reference and value beyond itself, with 
some sort of attachment to the single world which is more 
than momentary experience, and this is what existence, in 
general, means, though it has a narrower meaning implying 
existence as a thing or event in time. 

35. ‘What completely exists may be completely known’ ; 


BOOK V. 211 


better, ‘is completely knowable.’ It follows from this that 
what is not completely knowable cannot completely exist. 
This again is really a truism, apart from refinements about the 
relation of ‘existence’ and ‘reality’ within experience which 
do not concern us here. Plato takes the position which 
is at once absolutely practical and absolutely critical. The 
problem from the outset is simply to order our experience. 
What is in any way suggested to us as real is so far ex- 
perienced, and exists as the object of direct or conditional 
knowledge. What is not is nothing for us; and we only add 
a certain suggestio falst by retaining the qualification ‘for us.’ 
The region of the unknowable or non-existent is thus simply 
the boundary of knowledge. 

40. ‘At the same time to be and not to be.’ ‘At the same 
time’ is not in the Greek and is not really necessary, for 
difference of time explains nothing without change of condi- 
tions. The point is that ‘the same’ is and is not qualified in 
the same way, without such explanation of the contradiction 
as may be supposed in the case of relative terms, 195. 479. 

192. 1. ‘Well, then, as knowledge is correlative to the 
existent,’ lit., ‘is over the existent,’ etc. The argument is. 
somewhat like that of Book tv. to test the distinctness of the 
three elements in the soul. Three kinds are suggested; the 
two extreme opposites are disposed of first, and something 
intermediate discussed later. 

21. ‘Faculties are a certain general class.’ He breaks off, 477 C 
in inferring that science and opinion, being distinct, must 
have different object-matters, to show by a definition of 
faculties that this is a sound inference. ‘ Faculties,’ literally, 
powers or potentialities. ‘Things’ in the following line should 
of course go out. 

24. ‘The special conception,’ z.e. ‘form’ (eidos). 

27. ‘In a faculty I do not see either colour,’ etc. If 
‘things’ stands, it must not imply that faculties are things. A 
faculty, then, is nothing apart from ‘its province and its func- 
tion,’ lit., ‘that over which it is, and what it effects.’ If 


212 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


Plato’s definition had been adhered to, no harm could have 
come of the assumption of faculties. Itis only by looking away 
from ‘what it effects’ (its law of working), and imagining 
qualities in the faculty not verified in its working, that mis- 
chief comes to psychology, e.g. in the theory of the will. 

E 39. ‘General term,’ ‘genos’=‘genus.’ ‘Denomination’ in 
the next sentence is ‘ eidos’=‘ species’ or ‘ form.’ 

193. 1. ‘That whereby we are able to opine.’ ‘Able’ recalls 
the word rendered ‘faculty,’ which might also be translated 
‘ ability.’ 

5. ‘The fallible with the infallible.’ This is a distinction 
of principle which there is a certain difficulty in applying. 
Plainly, judged bythis test, no book nor thought is pure science. 
The point is, however, that opinion or seeming is the most 
itself when it makes mistakes, z.e. perpetrates inconsistencies, 
while the imperfections of science are impurities in it gua 
science. Its very essence is criticism and consistency, and 
Plato’s ‘science,’ we must remember, is not identified, as ours 
is apt to be, with physical or mathematical knowledge to the 
exclusion of philosophy. 

478 B 32. ‘Impossible to apprehend even in opinion what does 
not exist.’ A bare negative is necessarily without meaning 
and therefore cannot be presented to the mind even as a 
‘seeming.’ A significant negative is always a concealed posi- 
tive, and therefore asserts a content and does not embody 
bare not-being. We may say ‘I can think of a Centaur, 
which does not exist.’ But so far as the thought has meaning 
its object does exist, though subject to endless reservations 
and contradictions. 

38. ‘Has an opinion about some one (thing).’? Opinion 
was distinguished from science by being fallible, and is now 
distinguished from ignorance (absence of experience), by 
possessing a positive matter or content. 

C 194. 11. ‘Beyond either of these.’ Certainty or distinct- 
ness depends on the degree of organisation of experience, and 
the nature ascribed to opinion as essentially subject to error 


BOOK V. 213 


shows that it is a phase below science in this respect. 
‘Ignorance,’ of course, is the termination of experience in the 
negative direction. It does not include positive error, which 
belongs to ‘ seeming.’ 

35. ‘What that is which partakes both of being and of not- E 
being,’ and which cannot be identified with either of these 
apart from the other. The next thing is, then, to explain the 
nature of this intermediate, or, not reckoning ‘ignorance’ 
(which drops out in the following books), this initial stage 
of thought. 


194. 42, 479 A—end of Book v. Sect. 62. 


All isolated or uncriticised judgments are purely relative, and 
their negation ts as true as their affirmation. This incoherence 
constitutes them the province of ‘ seeming’ or ‘ opinion,’ in which 
commonplace minds are content to rest, while those possessed by 
the true spirit of science—the philosophers—insist on criticising 
all judgments till in every group of phenomena they have 
detected a single and central principle. 


195. 1. ‘Anything absolutely beautiful, or any form of 479 A 
abstract beauty,’ etc., more lit., ‘who thinks that there is no 
self of beauty nor form (Greek ‘idea’ = outline, contour, ‘form’ 
used as when we speak of ‘death in all its forms’) of beauty 
itself eternally invariable, but believes in many beautifuls’ 
(perhaps ‘many beauties’). The many beautifuls or beauties 
contrasted with beauty itself are plainly either objects or 
qualities as judged beautiful at a given moment. 

6. ‘Of all these beautiful things,’ rather, ‘of the manifold 
beautifuls’ or ‘ beauties,’ ze. judgments or cases of beauty not 
unified by an explicit principle, and so certainly unreconciled, 
and probably unreconcilable, and the same with ‘justices’ and 
‘holinesses,’ cases in which justice and holiness are ascribed 
by ‘common sense’ on uncriticised grounds. All of these, it 
is urged, are purely ‘relative,’ that is to say, are based, in one 
way or another, upon standards not assigned, and when 
assigned, for the most part contradictory. In the simple 


ee ter ty 


214 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


cases of quantitative predicates taken below, ‘double, half,’ 
etc., a mere change of comparison is enough to reverse the pre- 
dicate, and every one will judge according to the comparison 
uppermost in his mind. In the less easily analysable cases of 
beauty and the like, the conflicting standards may be found in * 
the feelings of different persons, classes, or peoples. Herodotus 
has a notable passage dealing with the latter in the form of 
contrasted religious beliefs (Hdt. iii. 38), and the principle of 
Protagoras, ‘Man is the measure of all things,’ embodied 
this perception of the age. Or the opposition may be seen 
more subtly in judgments of the same mind which imply con- 
flicting standards of the same attribute, like the conflicting 
definitions of justice in the first book. It is just to pay your 
debts, it is just to treat others as they treat you, to do no 
injury to any one, to obey the law, to pursue your own interest, 
-etc., and reliance on one or more of such half-thought-out 
cases as these is the mental condition of the man who 
merely has opinions, or does not get beyond ‘it seems to me.’ 
So again he will pronounce one picture beautiful because it 

’ looks like nature, another because it tells a story, a third 
because it has a mass of bright colours in it, a fourth because 
it has a pleasant pattern in it, and these judgments are not 
merely various but, in their implication, conflicting. It is 
striking to note how readily and thoroughly this principle of 
relativity is admitted by the interlocutor, the doctrine that 
man is the measure of things having in fact become at this 
period a commonplace of philosophy. 

479 B 21. ‘Would it be more correct, then, to predicate,’ more 
lit., ‘Zs then or zs mot each of the manifold (cases) more 
really that which one asserts it to be?’ viz., beautiful, just, 
etc. The question is pronounced unanswerable. 

D 196. 2. ‘The mass of notions, current among the mass of 
men’: a depreciatory combination of phrases, the association 
of the ‘hoi polloi’ or the mob being transferred to current 
opinion, =‘ The multitude’s multitudinous formule.’ This 
important sentence clearly bears out the view taken of the 


BOOK V. 215 


so-called ‘many objects’ above. There is no objection on 
Plato’s part to many beautiful things or just actions as em- 
bodiments of the true principles of beauty and justice. What 
stamps common sense as a seeming or appearance is its 
habit of permitting each case or chance set of kindred cases 
to constitute a formula—‘nomimon,’ a rule or standard— 
which it accepts as gospel without perceiving that it conflicts 
- with a hundred and one rules accepted by itself on the same 
subject. 

4. ‘Roam about between the confines,’ perhaps ‘tumble 
about in an interspace between what is not and what straight- 
forwardly is.’ 

g. ‘These intermediate rovers,’ etc., perhaps ‘this shifting, 
intermediate world,’ etc. 

12. ‘A multitude of beautiful objects.’ It is plain that 479 E 
‘many beautifuls’ (the literal rendering) may be the plural 
either of ‘the beautiful’ or of ‘a beautiful thing.’ The 
sentence about formule, 196. 2, 479 D, leads me to interpret 
it in the former sense=‘many standards,’ or cases accepted 
as standards, of beauty. Perhaps ‘Those who look at 
manifold beautifuls, but have no eye for beauty itself (omit 
‘in’), and manifold examples of justice, but not justice itself, 
and so on, we shall affirm to be simply opining throughout, 
and to know nothing of what they opine about.’ 

21. ‘Things as they are in themselves,’ more lit., 
‘What are we to say of those who look at the unchanging 
selves of the several (qualities or principles)?’ ‘The selves 
of each (of the qualities)’ is plainly the plural of such an 
expression as ‘beauty itself’ or ‘the self of beauty,’ not the 
plural of ‘each,’ as indicating an individual phenomenal _ 
object; the phrase does not suggest any reduplicated 
existences corresponding to the things of the actual world, 
but indicates the attitude of mind which in ‘each,’ ze. in 
every connected group of phenomena, as beauty, justice, 
quantity, attempts to ascertain the ‘self’ or unifying law. 

25. ‘Such persons admire and love the objects of knowledge.’ 


480 A 


216 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


The distinction of knowledge and opinion or seeming is applied 
to explain the distinction of 189. 28, 475 D, between the true 
and false philosophers. 

29. ‘Will not hear of the existence of an abstract beauty.’ 
Perhaps for the whole sentence ‘they enjoy and dwell upon 
the sight of beautiful sounds and colours and the like, but 
beauty itself they will not tolerate as being at all,’ ze. they 
say ‘How beautiful that sounds,’ ‘how beautiful that looks,’ 


-but they refuse to unify or reconcile their perceptions. 


39. ‘That which in each case really exists.’ Observe that 
we have had ‘the self of beauty, of justice,’ etc., then ‘the 
selves of each (of the qualities)’ and now we have, on the 
same lines, ‘the self of each (form of) being,’ which=‘the 
selves of each (of the qualities),’ with an assertion of reality 
added. It is noticeable, however, that the Latinised term 
‘reality,’ meaning ‘ of the nature of a ¢Azng,’ has no correlative 
in Plato, whose expressions for that which most truly or 
intensely zs, are almost entirely couched in forms of the 
verb ‘to be.’ 


BOOK VI 


Book vi. (é#@#.)—201. 27, 487 A. 


The fundamental distinction between the ‘philosophic’ and 
the vulgar mind having been ascertained in the previous Section, 
the moral and intellectual qualities which it implies in the 
. * philosopher’ are explained, to show that there is no absurdity 
in committing the affairs of government to such hands. 


Sect. 63. 


197. 14. ‘Apprehend the eternal and immutable,’ ‘the 484 B 


region of change and multiformity,’ more lit., ‘Since those 
are philosophers who are able to grasp that which is always 
uniform and invariable, and those who are unable to do so, 
but are all abroad (lit., ‘wander’ or ‘are in error’) among all 
sorts of aspects of many (‘objects’ or ‘affairs’), are not 
philosophers’; the translators’ efforts to adapt their render- 
ing to the English idiom, especially by introducing the 
convenient word ‘region,’ most naturally but unfortunately 
favour the materialised image of, so to speak, a common- 
sense earth and a philosophic heaven, which disfigures the 
whole current interpretation of Plato. Without desiring to 
dogmatise on the insoluble problem how far precisely Plato’s 
occasional imagery influenced his philosophic thought through- 
out, the interpreter must protest against the superfluous 
introduction of spatial metaphors, and must also remind the 
reader that the truths of philosophy cannot be expressed 
to-day without statements which run very close to Plato’s 
language in such passages as this: cf. e.g. Mill’s account of 


Laws of Nature as ‘ Uniformities reduced to their simplest 
217 


218 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


expression,’ Zogic, Bk. iii. ch. 4, or Bradley’s ‘Once True 
always True,’ Principles of Logic, p. 133, or even Huxley: 
‘And yet to.the eye of science there would be no more dis- 

’ order here than in the Sabbatical peace of a summer sea,’ 
after the well-known sentence beginning, ‘It is conceivable 
that man and his works and all the higher forms of organic 
life should be utterly destroyed.’ If therefore we are to 
re-think Plato’s thought at all, we may surely re-think it in 
terms of those ideas which are both truest, and most nearly 
akin to his own actual expressions. 

484C 32. ‘Knowledge of things as they really are,’ rather, ‘ know- 
ledge of each (form of) being’: cf. 196. 39 and note. 

33. ‘Possess in their soul no distinct exemplar,’ pattern or 
illustration. Note ‘in their soul,’ and cf. close of Book rx., 
where the pattern is said to be in ‘heaven,’ showing the 
figurativeness of Plato’s language. 

D 1098. 2. ‘Earthlycanons aboutthings beautiful,’ etc. ‘Earthly’ 
is a quite correct rendering of the Greek ‘here,’ the common 
term for this world as opposed to another; of course the 
distinction of ‘ worlds’ is used figuratively by Plato as by ts. 
‘Canons’; the word is the same as 196. 2, 479 D, ‘mass of 
notions’ (see note there). 

g. ‘ Each thing in its reality’; better, ‘each (form of) being 
(see 196. 39, note). 

12. ‘ Not wanting in the other qualifications’ : cf. 62. 375; | 
the combination of qualities commonly taken to be opposite 
was the difficulty from the beginning. Plato hinted even at 
first that there was more natural connection between them 
than was obvious at first sight. 

485A 27. ‘With regard to the philosophic nature’: cf. 189. 6, 
475 8, and 63. 17, 375 E, and note the development which 
the ‘philosophic nature’ has undergone. Especially in 
comparison with the ‘calculative’ element of Book Iv., 
observe that a new and positive passion is now being invoked, 
over and above the foresight and estimate of veins: 
in social life. 


BOOK VI. 219 


29. ‘That real and permanent existence,’ etc., more lit., 485 B 
‘that being which always 7s (¢.e. never ‘is not’: cf. close of 
Book. v.) and is not disordered by generation and decay.’ 

36. ‘On a previous occasion,’ see 188. 474-5. 

43. ‘Truthfulness’; the duty is here deduced from the C 
passion for knowledge. Contrast the disciplinary necessity of 
truthfulness in the young and the subjects in the community, 
79. 389 B. Such cases as this illustrate the growth from 
habit to principle indicated 97. 401-2. 

199. 1. ‘If it can be helped,’ more lit., ‘ voluntarily.’ 
Probably the translators had in mind 167. 22, 459c and 80. 
1, 3898, about the necessity that the rulers should use 
deception. But at this point, I am inclined to think, Plato 
means to withdraw that humorous suggestion, belonging to 
the half-mythical detail with which he draws out his imaginary 
city. 

25. ‘Pleasures that are purely mental,’ more lit., ‘the D 
pleasure of the mind itself in itself.” Note the caution with 
which the antithesis is stated. Plato does not speak of 
‘ bodily ’ pleasures—-of course all pleasures are psychical states 
—but of pleasures ‘ by means of the body,’ z.e. those in which 
bodily conditions are the chief or for our knowledge the sole 
antecedent. This distinction has still to be taken account 
of. This drafting off the force of desire by the ‘expulsive 
power of a new affection’ is a different conception from that 
of the prohibitive reason in Book iv., though, of course, it 
may be considered as the positive of which that was the 
negative aspect. On the other hand, the climax of ‘musical’ ~ 
education, in ‘the love of the beautiful,’ distinctly points 
forward to this development. It must be repeated that we 
are not here to think solely of the metaphysician in his study 
or the physical investigator in his laboratory, although the 
seventh book shows us how definitely the enthusiasm of exact 
science was included in Plato’s conception; ‘philosophy’ 
does not primarily mean to him either natural knowledge or 
metaphysical research, and it is at least doubtful whether we 


220 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


should not do better to employ some other term to represent 
his thought. But for certain unfortunate associations, ‘ culture’ 
would perhaps be the most suitable word ; it would have to 
be understood as the spirit of unity realised in the whole 

- region of knowledge and action so far as is possible for man. 

486A 199, 41. ‘Aspire to grasp truth both divine and human, 
more lit. (the whole sentence), ‘for little-mindedness is surely © 
the most contrary (quality) for a mind destined ever to reach 
out after the entire totality of the divine and human (world).’ 
It is a pity to put in the word ‘truth,’ which is not in the 
Greek, because the passage contains an implicit definition 
which goes beyond the current conception of truth. 

200, 2. ‘A spirit full of lofty thoughts,’ etc., more lit., ‘an 
intelligence which has greatness and the vision of all time and 
of all being.’ 

4. ‘ This life,’ lit., ‘human life’; there is no suggestion 
of contrast with another life. Compare with this the sketch 
of the ‘high-minded man’ (Peters) in Aristotle’s Wicomachean 
Ethics, iv. 3, and Mr. Stewart’s note on it. Aristotle has 
made the high-minded man, with his deep voice and slow. 
gait, a little ridiculous to our perception. Plato’s conception 
hardly bears being embodied in a single shape of flesh and 
blood, as Aristotle attempts to present it. It fulfils itself in 
the individual man only by parts and progressively. The 
littleness of life is a topic which needs careful handling to 
avoid mere quietism. It must be understood of the individual 
life in its detachment or isolation, not of the individual as 
organ of the universal. Christianity has the same paradox in 
deeper intensity. 

E 201.10. ‘The forms of things as they really are,’ more 
lit., ‘the form of being in each’ (case, or group of pheno- 
mena). See above, 196, 39, 480 A and note. 

15. ‘Of real existence,’ more lit., ‘ of what 7s.’ 

487A 24. ‘A retentive memory,’ etc. It is interesting to compare 
this list of qualities with those demanded of the guardian 
natures at first, 64. 6, 376, ‘philosophical, high-spirited, 


? 


BOOK VI. 221 


swift-footed, and strong,’ with the more elementary account of 
courage, high-mindedness, and veracity in the first pages of 
Book 111., and with III-I2. 412-14, where moral and intel- 
lectual steadfastness are valued as a guarantee of loyalty to 
the welfare of society. Here the civic virtues (taking ‘truth’ 
as corresponding to ‘ wisdom’) are retained, along with the 
gracefulness insisted on in the musical education ; but ‘ truth’ 
is beginning to be interpreted as transcending mere civic 
wisdom, and tends to absorb the ordinary social qualities in 
a larger unity and a greater motive. 


201. 28, 487 A—204. 37, 489 D. ; Sect. 64. 


Objection and part of answer. The facts of life show that 
even the more respectable sort of professional philosophers are 
useless in civic life, while the greater part are quite objectionable 
people. Why the more respectable sort are useless. 


201. 43. ‘Not at all the more convinced’: cf. opening of 487 C 
Book 11, ‘Do you wish really to convince us,’ or only to 
seem to. These objections (cf. also opening of Book tv.) 
show Plato’s consciousness of the danger of arbitrariness in 
his course of argument, and his extreme anxiety to recur to 
the facts and force the public to follow him. 

202. 8. ‘ Instead of taking it up for educational purposes,’ 
as a portion of ded/es lettres in the university curriculum, as we 
might say. This practice is in Plato’s opinion an important 
cause of the deserved discredit of philosophy (see 215, 39, 

498 a). Even the professed philosophers had not persevered 
to any complete maturity of knowledge and judgment. 

38. ‘The captain.’ Aristophanes personifies the Athenian 488 A 
Demos (‘ people’ or ‘democracy’) much as we personify 
John Bull. See Knights (424 B.c.), 42. ‘Demos of Pnyx 
(the assembly-place), an irritable old gentleman, and deajish,’ 
as Plato says here. You have to shout, we may suppose, in 
order to gain his attention, as is more or less the case to-day. 


222 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


Perhaps ‘the owner’ would be a nearer rendering than ‘the 
captain.’ The owner would often be his own captain, so that 
the word might take either sense. ; 
488E 203, 28. ‘Thinking it impossible.’ There is something attrac- 
tive in Mr. Richards’ argument that the absurdity imputed ought 
to consist in ‘thinking it posszble’ to combine the two trades 
of persuasion or command and seamanship. The argument 
of the following page seems to support him, so far that the 
ruler is, as throughout (26. 345 ff., and 243. 521 A), conceived 
of as needing compulsion to make him take up the work, 
rather than as exercising compulsion in order to obtain or 
retain it. A trifling change of reading would give this mean- 
ing. Still Iam not convinced that the change should be 
made. It is against our best feeling to divorce the power of 
ruling men from the craft of the ruler. This taken alone 
might be a prejudice which we should disregard in interpret- 
ing Plato. But further, I do not think that the discussions of 
Book 1. justify us in separating the power to rule, as a distinct 
sphere, from any particular skill or professional capacity. 
The idea throughout seems to be that they involve one 
another, and the ‘I don’t want to bea bishop,’ which is the 
attitude of Plato’s ideal official, means, ‘I have better things 
’ to do,’ not ‘I cannot govern men.’ The phrase ‘ whether 
some (of the crew) like it,’ etc., is peculiar, and often suggests 
a euphemistic reference to particular individuals, or here to a 
particular class of individuals, rather than to the general assent 
of those to be governed. It is like our ‘certain persons.’ I 
incline, then, to think the meaning to be that it is absurd to 
fancy that the born and trained steersman, if once called to 
the helm, will not be so justified by his inherent capacity for 
management and command (primarily by his success in 
manceuvring the ship, which involves the obedience of the 
crew) that any factious opposition on the part of discon- 
tented individuals will be crushed or disarmed by his mere 
superiority. The change of nomenclature from ‘captain’ or 
‘owner’ to ‘steersman,’ seems to me to show that the terms 


BOOK VI. — 223 


are widely used, and that we are not to lay stress on the 
difference in authority between steersman and captain. 


204. 20. ‘The useless, visionary talkers.’ It must be 489 C 


remembered that Plato demands new conditions for his philo- 
sopher as well as for his statesman. The present passage 
needs interpretation in the light of 187. 5, 473 D, where see 
note. 


204. 38, 489 D—2T4. 35, 497 A. 

Why the greater part of philosophers are objectionable people. 
The true rare natures are the target of all temptations, and are 
seduced from philosophy and become the worst enemies of society, 
while a certain pretension which still attaches to the name of 
philosopher attracts base-born natures to profit by it. 


Sect. 65. - 


205. 14. ‘To strain every nerve to reach real existence,’ 490 A 


or ‘to strive towards what 7s.’ 

15. ‘Those multitudinous particular phenomena—opinion,’ 
- etc., rather, ‘far from stopping at what opinion (or ‘seem- 
ing’) takes to be a manifold in the case of each (quality), he 
presses on till he has apprehended the nature of the self of 
each (quality),’ etc. Compare notes on last page of Book v. 
The contrast is, as above, between ‘each’ group seen asa 
disconnected, and therefore discordant, manifold, and ‘ each’ 
group seen in the unity of its ‘self’ or principle. 


24. ‘He begets wisdom and truth.’ See Davies and B 


Vaughan’s note, and note on 230, 16, 508 p below. It is 
quite true, as we saw at close of Book v., that Plato maintains 
a thorough-going relativity of ‘subject’ to ‘object,’ and vice 
versa, so that reason and truth may always mean, for him, 
intelligibility and reality. But here he seems to be speaking 
mainly of intellectual products. The language of the love- 
philosophy should be noted here as 188. 474-5 above. 


207. 31. ‘In the case of all seeds,’ according to the saying, 491 D 


‘the worst corruption is that of the best.’ A powerful nature 
badly nurtured will not be null, but will caricature the great 
qualities it might have possessed. 


224 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


491 E 40. ‘An ungenial nutriment.’ Note the simile of nurture, 
and cf. 96-7. 401 above. 

208. 3. ‘A splendid character.’ The word rendered 
‘splendid’ is literally ‘ youthful,’ or ‘belonging to a young 
man.’ Hence it is used for ‘ vigorous,’ or ‘intense,’ quite as 
if these were its primitive meanings, e.g. of intense cold, in a 
medical work. It is apt to imply insolence or presumption, 
or in a good sense to apply to ‘striking’ or ‘dashing’ 
achievement. . 

-492 A 18. ‘Themselves the greatest sophists.’ The. essence of 
sophistry is uncriticised commonplace ; not the practice of the 
true practical man, but the superstitious theory, which in its 
everyday utterance constitutes what is often taken for public 
opinion. There is no more difficult or interesting antithesis 
than that of the point of view in which, as here, current 
public opinion appears as the great sophist, and that in which, 
according to a suggestion of Aristotle (/o/. 1281 b. 7), there 
is more wisdom in the whole of the citizens than in any one. 
We saw above that Plato thinks of wisdom primarily in its 
intellectual form, and does not regard it so much as we do in 
the light of a self-criticising process inherent in the life of the 
community. We should, perhaps, conceive of the phenomena 
which he describes rather as a failure to grasp the reason in 
society, than as the true working of the collective mind. But 
none the less they are actual phenomena, and the tyranny of 
the commonplace is fact, though not the only fact. The 
account of democracy in Book viii. raises the same problem. 

E 209. 1. ‘ They chastise the disobedient.’ Moral training, 
good or bad, necessarily comes in great measure from the will 
of the community. For a companion picture, of what the 
individual could be said to owe to the community, even in 
actual Athens, see Cvito, 50 c-51 c. All this is wrongly read 
if we do not understand that Plato is insisting merely on one 
mode of the collective mind, which may take on other modes, 
as in his ‘justice.’ In fact both—the chaos of opinions and 
the oneness of social spirit—exist side by side, and the 


BOOK Vi. 225 


machinery which is meant to subserve the public will is some- 
times controlled by the one mode, and sometimes by the 
other. 

23. ‘All those mercenary adventurers.’ There is no reason 493 A 
for the word ‘ adventurers’ ; the original merely means private 
persons, as opposed to those who use the public power to 
enforce their views. The public and its political leaders 
tended to be suspicious of the influence of critics and teachers, 
whose only fault was that they did not get beyond its own 
current ideas. These ideas when nakedly stated, especially 
in a time of political or intellectual disquiet, will often excite 
the hostility of those who are in fact already influenced by 
them. This was very noticeable at Athens, where the public 
mind was liable to strong revulsions of feeling, moving all 
together. To-day we might almost wish that the public was 
more dissatisfied with its popular teachers than it is; it is 
rather organised in parties than disposed as a whole to turn 
against this or that popular school of thought. But the 
general truth of Plato’s view might still be illustrated by 
pointing out that any two opposite factions, ‘ Individualist,’ 
‘Collectivist,’ or the like, are, as a rule, very much more on 
the same ground than they think, so that their distrust of the 
other’s ideas is really a distrust of their own, and the solution 
is on neither side, but somewhere beyond both. 

210. 1. ‘Calling what it likes good.’ (See on 208, 18,C 
492 A above.) This has in it something of the wild satire 
that marks the account of Thrasymachus. It might be said, 
perhaps, in general, that a popular desire indicates a need, but 
not ze need. Cf. Butcher’s Demosthenes, p. 7. 

7- ‘The compulsory and the good.’ The ‘compulsory’ or 
‘necessary’ has often in Greek a special implication of a 
‘minimum, ‘the least that will serve.’ In this sense 
necessity conflicts with, or rather is less than, freedom ; but in 
a higher sense slavery, and not necessity, is the opposite of 
freedom. (See 313. 577.) 

13. ‘The whim and pleasures of.’ This evil we understand D 

P 


226 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


and have experience of to-day: what raised an apparent 
difficulty on the previous page was the jealousy alleged to 
subsist among popular leaders against teachers who neverthe- 
less were really on the same ground with them. 

18. ‘Putting himself in their power further than he is 
obliged,’ lit., ‘beyond the necessary’ (the same word as in 7 
above). Itis not easy to see the exact thought here; perhaps 
there is a distinction between satisfying the public taste so far 
as not to be hindered from doing public work (at that time 
practically the only work), as may be the case with a great 
artist backed by an enlightened statesman, and making the 
highest measure of immediate popular favour the aim of 
achievement, which would of course be disastrous. 

493 EE 27. ‘Anessential beauty,’ etc., rather, according to our usual 
correction, ‘the self of beauty, instead of a manifold of beauti- 
fuls, or (generalising) a self of each (quality) instead of a mani- 
fold of each.’ The word ‘multitude’ is literally ‘plurality,’ 
and has a rhetorical connection with the argument throughout. 

494B 211. 7. ‘From his childhood be first in everything.’ - This 
and the following paragraphs are probably in some degree 
tinged with a reference to Alcibiades. Note especially 
‘rich and high-born,’ ‘direct the affairs of Greeks and 
foreigners.’ 

D 30. ‘There is no real wisdom in him.’ ‘Nous,’ the word 
applied by the philosophers to intelligence in its completest 
form, is also the current Greek word for good sense or 
reasonableness ; the present sentence is perfectly simple and 
idiomatic: ‘he has no sense, and needs it, and it is a thing 
that cannot be got without taking trouble for it.’ 

495 B 212. 18. ‘Who inflict the greatest injury on states’: again 
an allusion to Alcibiades. See Grote’s summary and estimate 
of his life, ch. 66 end. Alcibiades, it must be remembered, had 
been the intimate friend of Socrates. (See the Symposium.) 

C 27. ‘Unreal,’ lit, not ‘true’: cf. 205. 24, 490 a and 
note, and ‘a course allied to reality,’ 44. 39, 362 a, and 
the investigation into the comparative ‘reality’ of pleasures, 


BOOK VI. 227 


321. 29 ff., 583 B, in both of which passages the Greek has the 
word ‘truth.’ 

38. ‘Like criminals.’ The order of the English is unfor- 
tunate, especially combined with the insertion of the noun 
‘criminals,’ which is not in the Greek, and the rendering ‘ des- 
picable’ for the Greek diminutive ‘little craft.’ The point of 
the comparison is merely the escape from a mean and confined 
space into large and splendid surroundings. Every one who 
has made a name at his own little speciality rushes to the 
chair or platform to instruct the world on the greatest 
problems of existence. We see this clearly enough to-day, 
the tendency being aggravated by the specialisation of 
philosophy itself. There seems hardly room in Plato’s con- 
ception for the mere student of logic or psychology as we 
know him, and it is well to be reminded that the scholar or 
logician is not as such a ‘philosopher’ in Plato’s sense, who 
is found perhaps once or twice in a century, except at great 
epochs. It should be added, however, that if to be a true 
philosopher needs a greatness beyond the reach of the mere 
specialist student, yet to have the philosophic temper in a 
high degree—energy, modesty, the passion for truth, readiness 
to criticise ourselves—is within the reach of all who deal with 
ideas. Plato’s conception, if in one sense more exacting than 
ours, in another is of wider application. 


495 D 


41. ‘Rank and splendour—transcend,’ rather, ‘her reputa- D 


tion,’ or ‘ pretensions are still loftier than those of.’ The fact 
is that the very discredit into which from time to time 
philosophy falls is caused in great measure by the alleged 
contrast between its promise and performance, the former 
being often grossly misconceived. 

213. 2. ‘Grievously marred and enervated,’ etc., more lit. 
the whole sentence would run, ‘and whose arts and crafts as 
they have disfigured their bodies, so too have crippled and 
mutilated their minds by reason of their sordidness.’ The 
conception of sordidness (banausia) is characteristic of the 
Greeks, and as described by Aristotle contains two elements : 


228 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


(1) the unfitting of mind or body for higher pursuits ; (2) living 
at the convenience of another. The freeman exists for his own 
sake (which does not exclude the innate or inherent relation 
to the community as a whole) and not for that of another. 
(See Newman, Introduction to Aristotle’s Politics, p. 111.) 
The purpose therefore makes a difference: work of an 
inferior class, done with a noble aim, is relieved of the stigma 
of sordidness, while a pedantic elaboration of some free arts 
(probably gymnastic, music, and painting) may be sordid. 
The current embodiment of this feeling differed widely in 
different Greek communities. At Athens the artisan was 
more favourably regarded than the retail trader, and more 
citizens belonged to the former class. Except at Sparta, 
agriculture was on the whole thought a free occupation. 
But according to a well-known saying of Plutarch, ‘ No well- 
constituted Greek youth, after viewing the Zeus at Olympia, or 
the Hera at Argos, would wish to be Phidias or Polycletus, 
their authors.’ I do not feel sure that this represents classical 
Greek feeling. The great poets were certainly among the 
most honoured of mankind. (See Newman, dc. 102 ff.) For 
us, of course, the student of books is about as much bodily 
and mentally marked by his calling as any one else, and 
Aristotle would perhaps have condemned his life as ‘ sordid.’ 
Thus it is true that every profession leaves its stamp, and 
after a time unfits its votary for a different line of work, as 
indeed Plato presupposes throughout. And undoubtedly 
there are some modes of life which especially disable men for 
speculative activity. What we miss in Aristotle, and to some 
extent, though less, in Plato, is a sense of the educational 
value of the handicrafts. In the AZology, it will be remem- 
bered, the workmen are distinguished as at least knowing 
their own business. 
496B 213. 38. ‘The bridle’ of Theages. Contrast the point of 
view of Bk. 111. 102. 406 on valetudinarianism. 
D 214. 14. ‘Such a man keeps quiet.’ This striking passage 
is one of the notes that presage the spiritual individualism of 


BOOR V1. 229 


the Stoic period, with its complementary anticipation of an 
invisible community. It is in sharp contrast with the con- 
ception of individual incompleteness which lies at the root 
of Plato’s social theory. Cf. 53. 41, 369 B above and note. 
The following paragraph makes a reservation which stamps 
quietism as after all a second best. 


214. 31, 497 A—22I. 32, 502 C. 


It having been shown that the popular condemnation of 
‘ philosophy’ is not founded in the nature of true philosophy, 
the question arises how to secure the perpetual presence of true 
philosophy—the grasp of reality—in the state, and the presenta- 
tion of this as the one condition of possibility for Plato’s common- 
wealth forms the final transition to the second or higher scheme 
of education. 


Sect. 66 


214. 42. ‘The seed of a rare exotic,’ more simply, ‘a seed 497 B 
4. 4 ply 


from abroad, sown in a soil foreign to it, loses its type under 
the new influence and passes into the native (species).’ Plato 
lived ages before the conception of immutable species arose, 
and obviously held a view which might be illustrated by the 
idea that, if, say, a foreign geranium were allowed to run wild 
in England, it would degenerate into one of the English wild 
geraniums. Of course, by reversion, something that looks like 
this may happen, but changed conditions of selection are then 
at work, as well as the differences of soil and climate. Plato’s 
idea errs by audacity; it is less easy than he fancied for a stock 
to pass from species to species. He had probably observed 
great changes of habit and appearance in plants transferred 
from one country to another, or perhaps even had imagined that 
the whole difference between native and foreign species arose 
through degeneration of the one into the other under the 
direct influence of climatic conditions only. Cf. 208. 492 a. 

215. 14. ‘The same in all points but one,’ etc. For the 
anticipation alluded to, see 122, 423 ©. The one point to 
be modified is just the condition which is to,explain the 


230 COMPANION TO PLATO’S REPUBLIC 


nature and degree of the hold on reality possessed by the 
commonwealth, z.e. its own degree of reality. 

497 D 26. ‘In what way a state may handle philosophy,’ without 
being destroyed by it. Ideas are forces, and like all forces 
must be organised if they are not to be dangerous. ‘A little’ 
philosophy ‘is the dangerous thing.’ 

498A 4o. ‘In the intervals of housekeeping and business’ ; better, 
‘in the interval (after boyhood and) before they begin house- 
keeping and business’ (see Mr. Richards in Classical Review). 
Cf. Aristotle, Zzhics, i. 3, 5 (Peters): ‘And hence a ‘young 
man is not qualified to be a student of Politics, for he lacks 
experience of the affairs of life which form the data and the 
subject-matter of Politics.’ ‘Politics’ for Aristotle is much 
the same as ethical science, or the science of life. I extract 
the conclusion of Mr. Stewart’s excellent note. ‘To sum up— 
the young man is an incapable student and critic of moral 
philosophy, because he is unacquainted with the facts, a 
knowledge of which it presupposes. His ignorance is due (1) 
to the short time he has lived; (2) to the strength of his 
passions, which do not allow him to see even the facts, which 
he has had opportunities of observing, in their true light— 
z.e. as involving the distinction of right and wrong, rather 
than of pleasant and unpleasant. He has not yet acquired 
the faculty by which the truths of moral philosophy can be 
apprehended, viz., the intelligence which neglects the pleasure 
or pain of the present, and regards the relation in which the 
pleasant or painful action stands to the whole life. Such 
knowledge of moral philosophy as the young man acquires is 
but ear and lip knowledge, of no influence upon his conduct. 
The moral faculty must be evolved as the result of the right 
ordering of his desires by moral training, before it becomes 
profitable for him to study the theory of morals. If the end 
were merely to construct a speculative system, perhaps a 
youth might be able to appreciate such a system, as he 
appreciates the elements of geometry; but conduct is the 

.end; and conduct requires knowledge of the perplexities of 


BOOK V1. 231 


life, and a settled character directed towards a high 
ideal.’ 

The resemblance of the system described by Plato to our 
modern plan of philosophical education can escape no one. 

216. 12. ‘ A course of training in philosophy suited to their 498 B 
years.’ I think ‘suited to their years’ is restrictive, and the 
meaning of ‘philosophy’ is indicated by the preceding co- 
ordinate term education. They are to have an education and 
a philosophy or ‘pursuit of knowledge’ suited for boys (cf. 
264. 536 D and £); apparently some easy instruction in 
arithmetic and the elements of science, together with the 
‘ musical’ education described above. This would go on till 
about the age of seventeen ; then come two or three years of 
bodily training, and after that the more serious work of edu- 
cation: cf. Z.c. The main point is that the study of ‘ dialectic’ 
is deferred till the character is settled. (See 265. 537-8.) 

35. ‘In asecond existence.’ Jowett, ‘ when they live (rather, D 
‘are born’) again, =‘in a new terrestrial life.’ Cf. ‘ carried up 
to their birth’ on last page of this dialogue. The feeling of 
incalculable vistas of time, expressed in the two following 
sentences, applies primarily to the unknown intervals between 
the repeated terrestrial lives, which are Plato’s mythological 
way of expressing the continuity of spiritual life, and, it may 
be, of spiritual progress through the ages. 

42. ‘Our present theory,’ lit. ‘what is now being spoken of’ 
—1i.e. the true philosophic life. 

217. 1. ‘Proposals somewhat resembling ours’; better, E 
‘ phrases somewhat resembling,’ etc.; the contrast is between 
the true organic life of intellect and feeling, expressed, as 
Plato holds, most naturally in conversation, and the rhetoric 
of the professional phrase-maker, which is a dead product of 
‘patching and piecing, adding and taking away,’ so as to fit 
the parts together in a whole which is written, but not vitally 
thought. (See close of Phaedrus, especially 278 E.) 

16. ‘Special pleadings,’ lit. ‘eristic’ (arguments). See 159. 499 A 
454 A above and note. No doubt a great part of the popular 


232 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


repugnance to philosophy rests on the belief, not unfounded, 
that.in it the sheer pursuit of truth is lost in prejudice and 
self-importance. Few would be found to condemn the pursuit 
of truth as such. 

499 B- 23. ‘These few philosophers who are at present described 
as useless’; this leaves out of sight the condition that the 
philosopher-statesman must be a man of affairs throughout. 
(See 187-8. 473-4 above.) 

C 36. ‘Persons of first-rate philosophic attainments,’ more lit. 
‘(persons) first rate at philosophy.’ The difference may 
appear small to the reader, but it really involves the distinction 
between suggesting a man chiefly notable for acquired learning 
of a very special kind, and a man qualified in the highest 
degree for a complete insight into life. 

500A 278. 15. ‘ Defining, as we have just done’: see close of 
paragraph, ‘not in the majority of mankind.’ It is really 
misapprehension and not innate hatred of reason that causes 
the prejudice against the truly educated classes. The fact is, 
that the people who pose as educated are not educated at all, 
and necessarily spread a false impression of the character and 
bearing of educated people. 

B34. ‘ Always discoursing about persons.’ Personality is the 
great characteristic of low-class controversy, and rightly 
produces suspicion in the looker-on that disputants are not 
truly absorbed in the issue or business in hand. 

38. ‘The things that really exist,’ has his mind occupied 
with ‘ what zs.’ Plato’s meaning would often be better given 
if this phrase were rendered by ‘facts’ in the general English 
sense as opposed to falsehood or superstition, but of course 
not indicating restriction to sensible events, so as to exclude, 
¢é.g., Laws of nature. It cannot be too often urged that, in the 
phrase ‘what zs,’ Plato has primarily in mind a judgment which 
maintains itself and does not prove false. (See close of Book 
v. and notes.) 

39. ‘Tolook down upon.’ For Plato’s own warning against ° 
interpreting these metaphors in a quasi-spatial, which is also a 


BOOK VI. 233 


mystical, sense, see the criticism of such an interpretation 
254. 529 below. 

43. ‘ Certain well-adjusted and changeless objects.’ ‘Objects,’ 500 C 
as usual, a supplementation of a neuter plural, here with most 
unfortunate associations to an English mind. Try ‘looking 
on (a world whose elements are) definite and uniform, and 
beholding—each other, but are all orderly, and rationally 
related.’ Plato is speaking directly, to judge from Book vit., 
of the structure of the world as revealed by mathematical 
science, and ultimately, no doubt, of the moral and spiritual 
order of the universe as studied by the complete philosophy 
to which he looked forward without being able to construct it. 

219. 4. ‘To avoid imitating that with which he reverently 
associates.’ On the force of imitation, cf. 88-9. 395 above, and 
the first education throughout. It is equally powerful for good 
and evil, see especially 351. 606 below. Cf. Aristotle, Poetzc. 4, 
‘Imitation is implanted in human beings from childhood— 
and man differs in this from all other animals, viz., by his 
superlative turn for imitation, and all his earliest lessons are 
learned by imitation.’ 

g. ‘ Orderly and godlike himself.’ The ‘ philosophic’ temper 
or disposition, which has been traced up from the animal 
mind, here expands into that which apprehends the divine, 
and is itself the divine in man. See above, 63. 17, 376 A, 143. 
37, 439 D (the ‘calculative’ element), 189. 24, 475 c, and 
below, 33I. 1, 589 p. Cf. ‘For we know that when He shall 
appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.’— 

1 John iii. 2. 

15. ‘In that higher region,’ lit., ‘ there ’—7.e., according to D 
frequent usage, ‘in the other world.’ Cf. 218. 39 note on ‘to 
look down.’ 

24. ‘The divine original,’ or pattern. Cf. 197. 34, 484 C, E 
‘pattern in the mind.’ 

28. ‘Begin by making a clean surface.’ Contrast Schiller, 501 A 
Aesthetische Briefe, iii.: ‘das lebendige Uhrwerk des Staats 
muss gebessert werden, indem es schlagt, und hier gilt es, das 


234 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


rollende Rad wahrend seines Umschwungs auszutauschen.’ 
Here, more than anywhere, just because Plato approaches the 
notion of an ideal cut off from the springs of actuality, does he 
seem to our thought ‘not ideal enough.’ His whole adaptation 
of social arrangements to the facts of human nature would be 
stultified if this passage were taken in the full meaning which 
it seems literally to suggest. If you make a clean slate of 
social institutions and human dispositions, to what fundamental 
facts is the new creation to be adapted? We must take 
the passage, I imagine, as the strongest possible expression 
of repugnance to the life of his time, but nevertheless as, 
technically speaking, implying a distinction between the 
fundamental tendencies of human nature and their diseased 
and distorted expression in the society of his day. Cf., for the 
method of cleaning the surface, close of Book vi1., which in a 
certain sense prefigures our idea that the great hope is to give 
the children a fair start. It may be remarked that disregard 
of the continuity involved in family life is of a piece with 
Plato’s readiness to abandon the family. Cf. also note-on 42. 

501 B_ g1. ‘ To the ideal forms of justice,’ etc., lit., ‘ to the naturally 
just and temperate,’ etc. Cf. the ‘real bed’ which is that ‘in 
nature,’ 338. 10, 597 B. 

42. ‘And then to the notions current among mankind’; 
better, as Jowett, ‘to the human copy,’ z.e. that which they are at 
work on. The ‘natural’ principles of justice and other moral 
qualities are no doubt those which Plato believes himself to 
have found present, in various degrees, throughout inorganic 
and organic nature and the animal world, and culminating in 
the life of man. See close of Book 1.; the allusions to 
‘nature’ in the construction of society, Book 11; the rela- 
tion of economic system to morality, Book 1v.; and the frequent 
references to analogies from the animal world, together with 
the allusion to the reign of law, 218. 43, 500 c, as there 
explained in note. Thus the comparison is between the life 
of man, as seen in the light of great principles which appear to 
pervade the universe, and the life of man as an imperfect 


BOOK V1. 235 


embodiment of those principles and the possibilities which 
they suggest. The ‘philosophers’ are to apply the larger 
view in assimilating actual life to the life thus suggested 
to them. 


220. 36. ‘The fabulous constitution which we are describing 501 E 


will not be actually realised,’ or, more lit., ‘the constitution 
which we are fabling (‘mythologising’) in word will not receive 
fulfilment in act.’ The more literal rendering suggests that 
the realisation may be not so much the execution of a scheme 
as the fulfilment of a symbolic prophecy. 


221. 2. ‘ Cannot by any possibility beget sons’: a pathetic 502 A 


irony. Can it be a fundamental impossibility that the son of 
a ruler should be a man of lofty character and intelligence? 
And if not (following paragraph), may not one in some single 
instance escape corruption ? 


3. ‘ Difficult, but certainly not impossible.’ The condition C 


on which the realisation of Plato’s social ideal depends has 
been assigned, viz., the application of the best ideas to the 
task of government, and it has appeared that the condition is 
of a kind that might present itself in experience. The fulfil- 
ment of the ideal is therefore a real possibility.. It remains to 
explain the mode and degree in which the condition can be 
accomplished or fail to be accomplished, and therefore the 
mode and degree in which reality can appear or fail to appear 
in society. Thus the underlying contention which the social 
scheme only illustrates, viz., the thorough-going connection of 
organised life with happiness and disorganised with misery, 
will be verified in its whole range. 


221. 33, 502 C—224. 31, 504 E. 

The condition of possibility which has just been explained 
demands that the subject of educational selection of rulers should 
be taken up where it was left off, and completed with reference 
to that highest kind of study, which deals with something beyond 
the mere social excellences, and therefore is the only scientific or 
critical mode of understanding even them. 


Sect. 67. 


236 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


502 D 221. 36. ‘ We shall secure the presence of a body of men,’ 
etc., a necessity insisted on 122. 423 a above. 

38. ‘And what must be the age.’ (See 264. ff. 536-7.) 

222. 1. ‘The appointment of the magistrates,’ taken up 
from II2. 41, 414.4. A fresh principle and test is to be added 
to those which were there described, or rather a genuine 
understanding of what has been the pervading principle 
throughout the education is to be demanded as itself the 
ultimate test. 

503 C 223, 2. ‘Steady and invariable characters’: ‘ invariable’— 
not liable to reactions-or transitions of feeling. Cf. '79. 388 £, 
and 90-I. 397 B. Weare rather inclined to contrast the man 
of action as brisk and stirring, with the intellectual man as 
slow and sedentary. But the notion of the student as seden- 
tary is not a leading idea with the Greeks, though in the Clouds 
we have some suggestion of the kind. Plato is rather harp- 
ing on a contrast like that so familiar to us in Thucydides, 
between the Athenian and the Spartan, the former ‘neither 
resting themselves nor letting any one else rest,’ the latter so 
slow that aggression can hardly rouse them to repel it. Plato, 
looking always for the elements of strength and durability, 
was anxious that the latter character, ‘like Teneriffe or 
Atlas, unremoved,’ should be the foundation of his citizens’ 
being. 

E 23. ‘Will be able to support the highest subject,’ or, ‘the 
greatest studies.’ Compare Socrates’ phrase in the Memora- 
bilia, iv. 5, 11, ‘does not pay attention to the most important 
concerns (in life).’ 

504 B38. ‘A longer route.’ Cf. 138. 6, 435 c. The admission 
was made at the point where the moral qualities and psycho- 
logical elements of the individual mind were about to be 
inferred from those which had been observed in society, and 
just before the Law of Contradiction was stated as an instru- 
ment in the inquiry. Plato probably felt that his division of 
psychological elements rested on an uncritical foundation, 


BOOK VI. 237 


that the social motive assigned as the content of reason bore 
no distinct relation (except through the analogy of the law of 
function) to the universe beyond the social whole, and that 
for both these reasons the unity of mind itself was insufficiently 
explained or demonstrated. Note the new position of reason, 
188-9. 475, with which cf. the theory of pleasure in Book 1x. 
The relation of reason to feeling cannot be explained without 
at least a working conception of the relation of mind to nature. 
And the relation of mind to nature or the universe is in effect 
the theme of Books vi. and vu. 

224. 8. ‘ Fair ; for nothing imperfect,’ etc. The word rightly 504 C 
rendered ‘ fair’ is formed from the Greek word for ‘ measure,’ 
which it echoes like our ‘ moderate’; the argument then is: 
‘No measure which deviates from what zs can be taken as a 
measure ; for in failing to appreciate what zs—the true nature 
of the matter in hand—it is deprived of all clue to its com- 
pleteness, and therefore cannot inform us whether or no its 
right limit has been attained.’ In paraphrase, ‘No concep- 
tion, which falls short of an individual system, can be adequate 
to any reality ; though people are often content to acquiesce 
in a philosophy of common sense or in a few uncriticised 
generalities.’ - 

20. ‘The highest science,’ or greatest, most important, sub- D 
ject of study. 

22. ‘Still something higher’; the moral qualities as exhibited 
in social relations are not ultimate or ‘the whole,’ but are, as 
a modern writer might say, ‘appearances,’ though having a 
certain degree of reality. It is noticeable that the dialectic 
which passes on to ‘something higher’ is what makes the 
noble claim that ‘the greatest (matters) demand the greatest 
exactness’; this, therefore, does not refer to a superficial 
elaboration of detail but to a thorough-going attempt to 
criticise experience and adjust its parts to one another as 
parts of a whole. 


238. COMPANION TO PLA TOS REPUBLIC 


Sect. 68. 224. 33, 504 E—227. 42, 507 A. 


LVature of the highest study, viz., the Form of the Good. 
Objections to identification of tt with knowledge and with 
Pleasure, and anticipatory description of it as that which all 
minds pursue. Transition to symbolic account of tt. 


505 A 224. 41. ‘You have often been told that the essential Form 
of the Good,’ etc. ‘Essential’ is an addition of the trans- 
lators, and seems superfluous. We should expect from this 
passage to find the form of the good constantly discussed by 
Plato, but, according to Jowett, ‘it is nowhere mentioned in 
his writings except in this passage.—Introduction to the 
Republic, xcviii. ‘The good’ indeed is discussed in the 
Philebus, especially 20 and 22, its main characteristic being 
there stated, as here implied, to be self-completeness or self- 
sufficingness (as here ‘autarkeia’: see note on 40. 2, 357 D, and 
53- 39, 369 B). Plato there expressly portrays the good as an 
organisation of elements of life, and not as synonymous with 
any single ‘form,’ except its own. The actual phrase ‘ form of 
the good,’ however, does not occur in the Philebus. Opinions 
differ as to whether the Republic is earlier or later than the 
Philebus : see Introduction. 

43. ‘And that this essence, by blending with just things 
and all other created objects’; this is needlessly elaborate. 
Try for the whole sentence, ‘ You have often heard that the 
most important subject of study is the form of the good, by 
assuming a relation to which (literally, ‘by using which in 
addition ’) the just and all else becomes useful and profitable,’ 
i.e. justice, etc., only have their meaning as subordinate prin- 

ciples in a complete or self-sufficing scheme of things. 

225. 5. ‘This essence,’ simply ‘ it,’ viz., the form. 

8. ‘To possess everything, without possessing what is good.’ 
See note on 40. 2, 357 Dreferred to above. ‘To gain the 
whole world and lose his own soul.’ 

Bg. ‘To possess all possessible things, with the single excep- 
tion of things good,’ more lit., ‘to have all possessions, but 


BOOK VI. 239 


those not good,’ and so further, ‘to have in mind all else, 
apart from the good—that is, to have in mind nothing good 
nor beautiful.’ 

26. ‘ That the chief good is insight into good’: this circle 505 C 
seems inevitable in any attempt at a definition of the good by 
a term outside it. For the good, for Plato and Aristotle, is a 
‘self-sufficing’ or individual whole, and can, therefore, only 
be explained by exhibiting its system, which alone communi- 
cates to any isolated term the quality of goodness which it 
may possess. Cf. Kant’s only good, the good will, which is 
the will that wills the good. Everything which can be defined 
by a mere reference confesses itself to be a mere relative term 
which has no internal system nor structure. A foot is 12 inches, 
and a yard is 3 feet, and you cannot define them further except 
by bringing up more cross-references. But a genuine whole, 
e.g. ‘society,’ must be defined by unfolding its system. 

35- ‘To admit the existence of evil pleasures’; the same 
argument, Philebus, 13 B, where Socrates attaches less im- 
portance than we should to the reply that no pleasures are 
evil gua pleasures. If any one admits the existence of evil 
pleasures zz the same sense of the term pleasure in which he 
alleges it to be a good, of course he is caught in the contradic- 
tion. But the admission is perhaps unnecessary. 

39. ‘The same thing to be both good and evil.’ If they p 
considered the pleasurable act as a whole under the head of 
pleasure they would get into this contradiction ; if not, then’ 
the defence of pleasure would not cover the objectionable 
sources from which it may spring, except at the cost of denying 
value to all else than pleasurable feeling. The contradiction, 
as Plato states it, is a case of the relativity insisted on 195. 479 
above, and therefore does not imply a need that the data 
should be rejected (that pleasure, ¢.g., should be excluded from 
the good) but only that they should be unified by criticism— 
that it should be shown what place pleasure holds among the 
objects of action. 

226. 5. ‘ When you come to things good’: cf. on the lie in 


240 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


the mind 72, 2, 382 a above. In other words, ‘good’ is a 
name for the all-inclusive end, or the end as such, so that the 
actual aim in action is always sought gua good: cf. following 
paragraph, and Pfz/ebus, 20 D, of which two passages Aris- 
totle’s opening statement in the Z¢/ics, i. 1, is a reminiscence, 
‘ And so it has been well said that the good is that at which 
everything aims’ (Peters). On this view all action has in it 
an element of seeking for good, as all genuine assertion has in 
it an element of truth, though confusion or narrowness may 
produce in action any degree of wickedness, or in assertion 
any degree of error. 

505 E11. ‘As the end of all its actions,’ more lit., ‘and for its 
sake does all (that it does).’ This view involves denying 
that bad, as such, can be desired for its own sake. I quote 
the best brief discussion on the point known to me from 
Bradley’s £thical Studies, p. 273: ‘The bad self cannot be 
desired for its own sake. Facts, in spite of certain appear- 
ances, proclaim that it is so, that the ako/astos | Aristotle’s 
‘ profligate,’ to whom evil has become good] is a creature of 
theory, that no one chooses evil simply on the ground that it 
is evil and for its own sake as evil. . . . But let us guard 
against error. It is false to say that evil is not done as evil; 
this or that evil act, when done, is desired for itself, and its 
content is known to be evil, and under the general head of 
evil it is committed. But the justification of the mistake is 
this, that only particular evils are desired ; there is no identity 
in them which is made an end, because there is none to make 
an end out of. . . . Simply to desire evil, as such, would be 
simply to hate good as such; but hate and aversion must 
rest on and start from a positive centre. You cannot have a 
being which is nothing but mere negation.’ 

506A 23. ‘Just things and beautiful things come to be also 
good,’ more lit., ‘“*justs,” and “beautifuls,” about which 
one is ignorant in what possible respect they are good, will 
not find a very valuable guardian in him who is thus ignorant.’ 
Cf. 224. 43, 505 A above. The explanation of these moral 


BOOK VI. 241 


and esthetic data in terms of their general value for life 
obviously satisfies the requirements implied at the close of 
Book v. as a differentia of ‘science’ contrasted with ‘ seeming.’ 
Till thus systematised the just and beautiful themselves are 
not really known (close of paragraph), the simple proof of 
this being that you cannot say what they are. 

34. ‘The chief good to be science or pleasure?’ This is the 506 B 
question of the P#ilebus ; the conclusion there is that neither 
by itself can be identified with ‘ the good,’ but that ‘ measure,’ 
z.e€. aS we might say, law or rationality, has the first rank. 

227. 30. ‘That which appears to be an offshoot of the E 
chief good’; ‘an offshoot,’ lit., ‘a child,’ cf. 229. 40, 508 c 
below, ‘whom the good begat in its own likeness.’ The 
famous passage which begins at this point, together with 
the parallel conception of the Zimaeus, has probably exer- 
cised an incalculable influence on the religious history of the 
world: cf. closing sentence of the Zimaeus, ‘ the only-begotten 
universe, God manifest to sense, the image of its Maker.’ 
It should be noted once for all that Plato’s symbolism is 
inherently connected with his idea of causation. Through- 
out the symbolic series which begins with this passage, as 
in the analogous discussions of the Zimaeus, the image or 
likeness is such because it is made on the pattern, or as an 
embodiment, of the deeper reality to which it owes its being. 
Compare TZimaeus, 27 C-29 D, and Mr. Archer Hind’s 
analysis (p. 84 of his edition): ‘All that comes to be comes 
from some cause; so therefore does the universe. Also it 
must be a likeness of something.’ The late Mr. R. L. Nettle- 
ship, in a review of Mr. Archer Hind’s Zimaeus, observed 
that for ‘also’ in the last sentence he should prefer to read 
‘therefore’ (Mind, xiv. 130). Some logicians love to insist 
that an effect need not resemble its cause, but this is a matter 
of the level at which you take the connection. There always 
is a continuity ; whether, and how far we detect it, is another 
question. Plato’s idea of symbolism is therefore, it will be 
noted, that of natural symbolism, in which the image has in 


Q 


242 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


part the character which is to be symbolised, and knowledge 
through the image is only imperfect—likelihood depending 
on mere likeness—because the image is not the self, ze. the 
proper or complete form of the reality to be understood. Cf. 
Timaeus, 28 c, and A. Hind’s note. 

507 A 38, 39, and 41. ‘Interest,’ ‘fruit,’ ‘offspring’; these all 
represent the same word, which has the double meaning of 
‘interest ’ and ‘ offspring.’ 

39. ‘ The essential good,’ lit., ‘ the good itself.’ 


Sect. 69. 227. 43, 507 A—220. 43, 508 C. 
Symbolic account of the form of the good as a ground of con- 
nection in the intelligible world, analogous to light as a ground 
of connection in the visible world. 


507 B 228. 6. ‘ The existence of a multiplicity of things that are 
beautiful,’ more lit., ‘we affirm and make the distinction in 
our thought (or argument) that there are many beautifuls and 
many goods, and so with every (quality).’ Cf. close of Book v. 
and notes. The present passage is a continuation of the same 
treatment. The ‘distinction,’ I suppose, is between the 
group of goods and the group of beautifuls, etc., or perhaps 
between the many beautifuls and beauty. 

g. ‘And also the existence of an essential beauty,’ etc., 
more lit., ‘whereas to the self of beauty and the self of good, 
and so on with all the (qualities) which before we were 
reckoning as manifolds, now again (ze. from another point of 
view) counting them according to the single form (principle) 
of each in virtue of its (the form’s) being one, we give the 
title of what each (quality) zs.’ 

15. ‘And we assert that the former address themselves to 
the eye,’ etc., more lit., ‘and the former we say are seen and 
not thought (participle), the latter are thought and not seen.’ 
Here we have the simple distinction between the two worlds, 
of sense and of thought, from which there has issued so much 
both of profound wisdom and of monstrous superstition. It 

s familiar to all of us in the later form, ‘ the things which are 


BOOK VI. 243 


seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are 
eternal.’ If it is the case, as is now maintained, that the 
‘being’ of the Eleatics was material, Plato is responsible for 
the first appearance of the fateful distinction in question in 
the written records of western philosophy. 

The discussion at the close of Book v. should have pre- 
pared us to understand the simple meaning in which the 
antithesis is here propounded. Cf. also 247-8. 524, and 346. 
602 below. ‘The only difficulty arises from our being well 
aware that sense-perception and thought are not ‘ cut off with 
an axe’ from one another. But the passages cited, and the 
whole of such a dialogue as the Theaetefus, show us that 
Plato, though not armed with the modern psychology of 
sense-perception, was perfectly well aware of the part played 
by thought in the perceptive judgment ; while on the other 
hand, any good modern logic (see especially Mr. Bradley’s 
Principles of Logic, or Mill, or Lotze) will explain to us how 
the detail and variety of the simpler sense-perception is 
mutilated, dissected, and remoulded as we approach the 
scientific judgment, till, in the organised system of truth, no 
element of sense-perception survives, except as a mere coin 
or counter of the intellectual currency. Sense-perception as 
such is of the ‘manifold,’ because its judgments are loaded 
with undistinguished and irrelevant detail, which prevents the 
unifying principles from coming clearly into view, and there- 
fore the world of sense is the world of negative relativity 
(close of Book v.), whose terms are perpetually shifting, of 
confusion, and contradiction. Any example of that critical 
observation and reciprocal adjustment of data which is to-day 
called induction is a perfect type of the progress from sense 
to thought as Plato conceives it. The world of law or plan, of 
Causation, Uniformity, or Teleology, is, so far as constructed, 
eternal and changeless according to the principle ‘ once true 
always true.’ It is the world of positive relativity, in which 
the parts, being ‘relative’ to a systematic whole, are not, so 
to speak, taken by surprise and driven out of themselves by 


244 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


a change of context. The world as reconstructed and appre- 
hended by a sense-perception which thought has cleared, and 
disciplined, and organised —the planets as Newton’s eye 
may have seen them—is of course no longer a world of 
sense-perception. ‘The elements of sense have in it become 
symbols of a vast system which exists for thought only. (See 
on astronomy 255. 21 ff., 529 £.) If the world of thought is 
erected into a world of things, as is constantly tending to 
happen under pressure of a zeal for its reality, combined with 
a false conception of the real, then it simply repeats the pro- 
blem of the world of sensuous perception, and wholly fails to 
serve as an explanation of it, or indeed to be in any way 
reconcilable or capable of union with it. 

The pre-eminence given to the sense of sight throughout 
the whole discussion is notable, and is intensified in a 
mystical sense in Neoplatonism and the Middle Age. Plato 
and Aristotle are much better aware than their successors of 
the great zsthetic importance of sound. 

so7 C 30. ‘Any other kind of thing,’ more lit., ‘any respect in 
which hearing and speech require an additional kind.’ They 
require a conducting medium, but so, we assume, does light, 
so that this ‘third’ would make no difference between the 
two cases. 

D 229. 1. ‘ Granting that vision is seated in the eye.’ Plato’s 
point is that this case of perception is a perfect illustration of 
unity, because the root or principle of connection between 
the two related objects is typified in a third object. Of 
course such a representation of unity in difference by three 
objects in space, or two objects-and a spatial movement con- 
necting them, is purely pictorial, and belongs to the sensuous 
level of the symbol. Any other case of physical causation 
would really do as well, the underlying truth being simply the 
pervading oneness which enables an object in space apparently 
to respond to the solicitations of another. Plato, by a natural 
crudeness of early thought, which still survives in common- 
sense language, seems to treat the mind as in space and 


BOOK VI. 245 


enabled to see an object outside it; but of course this is not 
intelligible ; the mind cannot be related to objects in space 
as one among them. The light and visible object, as such, 
are in the mind. The simile is sufficient without insisting on 
the erroneous implication in question. 

2. ‘Colour is resident in the objects.’ We need not ask 
what precisely Plato meant here by colour; he is actually 
saying that we see no colour without light. He is probably 
using the term colour much as we do, for that which would 
be colour if it was seen. 

11. ‘The sense of sight and the faculty of being seen.’ 508 A 
These are the terms which echo through the whole simile and 
its application: the qualities which put two distinct elements 
in responsive connection, and their single root. 

15. ‘To whom of the gods.’ Plato, in accordance with 
the orthodox views of the time, regarded the heavenly bodies 
as divine beings. For us this would involve regarding them 
as persons, and would make it impossible to consider them as 
objects of a science like astronomy. But Plato seems to feel 
no such difficulty, and we have to remember throughout that 
his conception of life or mind is much less closely bound up 
than ours with will or consciousness. A modern naturalist’s 
idea of evolution and molecular movement would probably be 
as near Plato’s notion of the universal life on the one side, as 
would that of a personal will on the other. 

27. ‘The eye—bears the closest resemblance to the sun.’ 
Cf. Goethe, Zahme Xenien, iv.: ‘ War’ nicht das Auge sonnen- 
haft, Wie konnte es das Licht erblicken!’ and Lotze’s 
criticism, MZetaphysic, 109 (E. Tr.) 

34. ‘ Though not identical with sight.’ This and the pre- B 
vious sentence labour the point that a ‘ power’ or property 
may rest on a cause or condition which is beyond or dis- 
tinguishable from the immediate point at which the power is 
exercised—in short, the fact of identity in diversity. 

36. ‘Seen by its aid.’ The root of the identity is itself 
revealed in the system which centres in it. Of course the sun, 


Sect. 70. 


246 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


as we see it, is not the sun as it is supposed to operate on 
the physical eye. 

39. ‘Begotten by it in a certain resemblance to itself.’ 
(See 227. 30, 506 Eand note.) ‘In a certain resemblance,’ 
lit. in ‘analogy,’ z.e. holding the corresponding relations with 
the terms of its world, as explained in the rest of the sen- 
tence. The unity brought about between two correlatives is 
the point of analogy ; these are, in the one world, ‘ sight and 
what is seen,’ in the other, ‘intelligence and what is under- 
stood.’ The externality of object to faculty, which Plato 
admits in the lower sphere through a confusion between per- 
ception and causation inherent in common-sense language, is 
not to be extended to the higher. There is no ground for 
the rendering ‘pure reason,’ a most unfortunate Kantism, 
conveying precisely the wrong associations. 

230. 1, 508 C—23I. 10, 509 B. 

Explanation of the parts of the symbol. Light, as tt 
illuminates the objects of vision, corresponds to ‘ trueness’ or 
‘knowability’ in the objects of knowledge ; sight, as the property 
or act by which the eye responds to light, corresponds to science 
or the intelligent quality of the mind ; and the sun, which is the 
basts of both sight (at the eye) and illumination (at the object), 
but 1s distinct from either, corresponds to the ‘form of the good’ 
as common centre of ‘ knowability’ or ‘ trueness, and of intellt- 
gence, and even as the cause or ground of ‘ existence.’ 


'508C 230. 8. ‘Whenever the same person looks at objects on 


which the sun is shining’; the contrast is really between the 
different degrees of distinctness in vision according to differ- 
ences of illumination. We are inclined to say that the object 
is the same all through, whereas Plato’s language implies that 
it changes with the direction of the faculty ; but as a visual 
object it does change, and so far the present passage, by 
insisting on the complete parallelism of object and faculty, 
undoes the error observed upon 229. 1, 507 D note. 

13. ‘Whenever it has fastened upon an object over which 


BOOK VI. 247 


truth and real existence are shining’: ‘ object’ is an insertion. 
‘Truth’ appears from the following paragraph to be what we 
now sometimes call ‘ knowability "—the rational or harmonious 
character which makes a content convincing, or consistent 
with thought as a whole. We might perhaps render it by ‘ true- 
ness,’ to avoid the association of a mind representing an 
outside world, which ‘ truth’ conveys to us. In thesame way, 
morally, in Book 1, ‘truth’ is used as practically=‘ honesty’ 
and in Aristotle’s Z¢hics as=‘sincerity’ or ‘true humility.’ 
See also the criticism of certain pleasures as ‘untrue,’ in 
Book rx. ‘Real existence’ or ‘what 7s,’ seems to be a reiterated 
expression for the same quality as ‘truth ’—the characteristic 
of not breaking down nor passing over into what is not. Try 
for the whole sentence, ‘whenever the mind has turned 
towards that which knowability and (the quality of) genuine 
being illuminate, it understands and apprehends it,.and is 
said to have intelligence; but when it has fixed on what is 
partly dark—that which comes into being and perishes—then 
it has mere seeming and is purblind, and shifts its opinions 
up and down, and is like one destitute of intelligence.’ If 
we throughout keep in mind the comparison as clearly stated 
in this and the two previous paragraphs, we shall have a 
clearer notion of Plato’s meaning than seems usually to 
prevail. Vision at night, by starlight or moonlight only, is 
being compared with vision in broad daylight. In the one 
we confuse things, and keep changing our judgment as to 
what a certain object is or where a certain thing begins or 
ends ;—there are gaps in which we can see nothing. In the 
other we clearly see the margins and connections of all the 
objects, and we do not take one for the other, nor constantly 
correct ourselves as to what is part of one and what of the 
other. Cf. 190. 43 ff., 476. 

22. ‘Now this power which supplies,’ etc., more lit., ‘this, 
then, which imparts knowability (lit. ‘truth’) to what is 
known, and furnishes the knower with his power (to know), 
you must affirm to be the form of the good, and you must 


50S E. .. 


248 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


think of it as being the cause of science, and of trueness (ce. 
of knowability or reality); and beautiful as are both know- 
ledge and trueness, you will be right in thinking it still more 
beautiful than they. And science and trueness—-just as in the 
other case (or ‘other world’) it is right to think of light and 
sight as like the sun but not the sun, so in the present case 
(in the world we are dealing with) it is right to think of both 
these as like the good, but wrong to think either of them to 
be the good.’ The distinction between science or knowledge 
on the one hand, which belongs to the knower, and ‘ trueness’ 
(really ‘ being’ or knowability) on the other, which belongs 
to what is known, is maintained throughout, as parallel to 
the quality of the seeing eye and of the illuminated object. 
With us science, knowledge, and truth, would probably be 
ranked together as ‘ intellectual’ or ‘ subjective,’ and opposed 
to being, fact, or reality, as ‘actual’ or ‘objective.’ Plato has 
not been led thus to oppose the actual to the intellectual 
world, and for him, as for modern Idealism, all reality and 
being fall within experience, if not indeed within knowledge, 
and the distinction which he accepts is plainly shown by 
his terminology to be a distinction of aspects within the 
intellectual or ideal world. Of course his Idealism is naive ; 
that is to say, it has not faced, and historically speaking could 
not be called upon to face, the full difficulties which attach 
to the question of knowledge and reality. But the more we 
study his conceptions, the more we shall understand with 
what extraordinary directness he was moving towards the 
truth. The form of the good, as representing the whole, or 
unity, is beyond and greater than knowledge and trueness, 
which are aspects within the unity. Cf. 231. 5, note. 

509 BB 231. 1. ‘Not only the faculty of being seen, but also their 
reproduction (‘ genesis,’ generation), growth, and nutrition, 
though he is not ‘“generation,”’ z.e. not constantly perishing 
and being reproduced. Here probably there is a trace of 
mysticism or confusion between the persistence of objects in 
space and time and the uniformity of natural law. Plato 


BOOK VI. 249 


seems to think that the sun is not perishable like the organic 
world. We have to remember that he thought him divine. 
Contrast also the passage on Astronomy in Book vit., where 
the line between the perishing appearance and the eternal 
reality is more truly drawn. The simile is here pushed one 
step further, and:a very important step. The sun is the cause 
(e.g. to the organic world), not only of visibility, but of exist- 
ence, though it is not part of the organic world. 

5. ‘The objects of knowledge,’ etc., more lit., ‘so too we 
must say that to what is known not only its being known is 
imparted by the good, but also its being (infinitive) and 
_ existence (substantive derived from verb ‘to be’) attaches 
to it thereby, though the good itself is not existence, but far 
beyond existence in dignity,’ etc. Here again the parts are 
much less separate in the truth conveyed than in the simile 
which conveys it. Visibility seems easy to distinguish from 
existence (less easy, the more accurately we limit the kind of 
existence), but to distinguish truth or knowability or reality 
from existence is seen at once to be a harder matter. Plato 
is really forcing a corollary by help of the simile. He has so 
far left it open to say, ‘ Nature and the world no doubt have 
trueness or knowability, and this points to some connection 
with or responsiveness to intelligence, but their existence or 
being—that simply zs—zt need not be relative to experience 
or intelligence.’ But he now pushes his point further and 
urges that being or existence must follow the fortunes of 
knowability, trueness, or reality ; the one cannot be taken 
and the other left ; what gives all detail and organisation to 
that which is known may as well be taken to give it its being 
too. It should be noted that we have not here a mere 
Berkeleyan argument. Plato’s aim is rather, standing naively 
on ground similar to Berkeley’s, to find some solid signification 
for the term reality; and what gives it him is not the mere 
‘percipi’ as ‘esse, but the notion of end, or purpose, as 
expressed in coherent definition, as the ‘nature’ of what is. 
This is why the supreme cause of being is for him the good ; 


Sect. 71. 


509 D 


E 


250 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


and also why the good is something beyond mere existence 
or presentation. Existence as given at any point may be 
isolated or inharmonious, but reality on the whole, including 
existence and ‘trueness,’ involves connection of aspects, 
completeness, self-maintenance through consistency. (See 
note on 230. 22.) The notion of something ‘beyond exist- 
ence’ reappears in Plotinus, and in the sense above indicated 
no complete philosophy can dispense with it. 


231. 11, 509 B—to end of Book v1. 


Scheme of the world of sense-perception and the world of 
science and philosophy, tn illustration of the nature and degrees 
of reality and the course which the man of true culture will 
have to pursue. 


26. ‘One over an intellectual—region.’ The spatial phrase 
‘region’ or ‘place’ belongs to the pictorial symbol. It has 
probably done something to fix the popular notion of Plato’s 
hypostasised ideas. Note the play on ‘ouranos,’ which in 
the Zizmaeus is the term for the visible universe, but com- 
monly =‘heaven.’ Thus Plato does not assign the heavens 
a different degree of reality from the earth, in spite of the 
phrase ‘not generation,’ 23I. 1, 509 B, where see note. 

34. ‘Into two segments.’ The word ‘segments’ recurs in a 
somewhat parallel passage, Phz/ebus, 61 E. The illustration 
seems to us here needlessly elaborate for what it has to 
convey. It must be remembered that lecturers find it advis- 
able to use the black board to convey absolutely simple ideas, 
merely to relieve the memory and attention of the audience. 
Plato might be influenced by some such custom ; ‘draw a 
line, divide it, and write the following names against each 
segment.’ If the reading ‘unequal’ above is right, some 
such symbolism as that suggested by the translators’ ‘ represent 
degrees,’ etc., seems probable, but the Greek is not decisive. 
Cf. Jowett, ‘compare the subdivisions in respect of their 
clearness and want of clearness.’ 

38. ‘Images’: cf. 96, 25, 401 B, and 97. 33, 402 B, and 


BOOK V1. 251 


339. 33, 598 B below. The productions of representative 
art fall under this head, as we see from the first and last of 
these passages. Images are a first aid in seeing: cf. 233. 
IT, #. 

232. 4. ‘Stand for the real objects corresponding to these 510A 
images,’ more lit., ‘for that to which this (viz., the segment of 
images) is like.’ The verb ‘to be like,’ which is used here, 
echoes the term for image (‘likeness’), and suggests such 
words as likely and likelihood,—‘ to liken,’ in sense of to 
guess, and so fancy and guesswork as ‘going by likeness.’ 
This connection of ideas runs through the whole argument 
about ‘ images’ and knowledge. 

6. ‘World of nature and of art.’ Better, as Jowett, ‘every- 
thing that grows and is made,’ the latter meaning the products 
of industrial art, not of ‘fine’ or representative art. 

8. ‘With reference to this class,’ etc., more lit., ‘that it 
(viz., the lower part of the line) is divided in respect of 
trueness and untrueness in the same way as (the whole of) 
seeming from (the whole of) the intelligible, the terms 
answering to these being the copy and that of which it is a 
copy.’ See on ‘trueness’ 230. 93, 508 cnote. The lower 
segment of the lower part is to the higher segment as the 
whole lower part to the whole higher part. Hence it follows 
almost conclusively that the higher segment of the higher 
part stands for a concrete world, as does the higher segment 
of the lower part, the lower segment of each part being 
emphatically abstract. 

10. ‘One segment will represent’; the lower segment of the B 
higher part of the line stands for the mathematical sciences, 
which employ ‘the segments of the other part,’ ze. the objects 
and copies of objects which those segments stand for, as 
illustrations, as in Euclid’s diagrams or in demonstrations by 
help of cubes, mechanical models, and the like. See follow- 
ing paragraph, which explains this more at length, and the 
full development of the scheme 245. ff. 522. 

21. ‘Travelling not to a first principle but to a conclusion,’ 


252 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


more lit., ‘proceeding not to a beginning but toanend.’ This 
is more fully explained in the following paragraph, and again 
in the next Book, 260. 533. Like ‘ principle,’ the Greek word 
‘arche’=‘ beginning,’ and the nature of the ‘beginning’ or 
starting-point in science or research depends of course on the 
method adopted and the matter dealt with, To speak of 
‘proceeding to the beginning’ implies that you may actually 
have begun in the middle, or, in other words, that the logical 
or natural beginning may not always be the point which you 
first get hold of. An ordinary science, Plato is saying, begins 
where it can and draws its conclusions. It does not go back 
to any beginning or principle par excellence, t.e. as we say, 
does not criticise its assumptions. Cf. Mill’s Zogic, Bk. 11. ch. 
vi. sect. 4: ‘It appears, therefore, that the method of all 
Deductive sciences is hypothetical. They proceed by tracing 
the consequences of certain assumptions, leaving for separate 
consideration whether the assumptions are true or not.’ On 
‘hypotheses’ see next paragraph and note. 

22. ‘One other segment will represent the objects of the 
soul as it makes its way,’ rather, ‘ will represent the passage of 
the soul.’ 

24. ‘To a first principle which is not hypothetical,’ ze. to 
a true natural beginning, which is not a beginning in the 
middle, such as is simply taken for granted or assumed. Such 
a true or natural beginning can ultimately of course be pre- 
scribed only by a conception of the whole of experience. 

25. ‘Unaided by those images—and shaping its journey 
by the sole help of real essential forms’: ‘journey,’ Greek 
‘methodos,’ a pursuit, from which our ‘method’ comes. In 
Plato this word, which is almost confined to him and Aris- 
totle, seems to be acquiring this force of a vegudar inquiry. It 
is used with ‘hodos,’ ‘ way,’ from which it is derived, 259. 38, 
533 B below, so as to emphasise the idea of ‘a pursuit in due 
course,’ Vergil’s ‘via,’ which almost=‘by method.’ ‘Real 
essential forms,’ rather, ‘with forms themselves and by their 
own means. Cf. above, 228. 15, 507 B and note. Few 


BOOK VI. 253 


things so simple have been so persistently misconstrued as 
Plato’s perfectly correct assertion that philosophy, and, we 
might add, the higher sciences, can make no use of spatial or 
sensuous symbols, and work with thoughts only. The highest 
value of the sensuous symbol is attained in art and the lower 
forms of religion. I should think that the mere diagram or pic- . 
torial representation, as distinct from the conventional language 
of the science, loses its importance to-day at a comparatively 
early point even in mathematics, though of course in a sense 
all spatial constructions can be suggested to the eye. 

34. ‘You know that the students of subjects like geometry 510 C 
assume,’ etc.: ‘by way of materials’ is paraphrase, not in 
Greek. ‘Assume,’ the verb from which ‘hypothesis’ is 
derived ; the word hypothesis and its adjective occur in the 
Greek where used in the translation. It is hard to bear in 
mind that they are here only beginning to receive the logical 
meaning which for us is their primary sense. The verb may 
mean ‘to suggest’ or ‘to lay down’ as a sort of foundation. 
‘ Investigation ’ is ‘methodos.’ 

From the beginning of this paragraph down to ‘geometry 
and the kindred arts,’ 233. 25, 511 B, is an explanation of 
that which is represented by the lower segment of the upper 
part of the line, which upper part stands for the intelligible or 
scientific world. 

40. ‘On the assumption that they are self-evident,’ more D 
lit., ‘as being plain to every one.’ 

41. ‘And making these their starting-point,’ lit. ‘and begin- 
ning from these.’ 

43. ‘With perfect unanimity,’ rather, perhaps, ‘consistency’ : 
cf. 260. 13, 533, ‘by what possibility can such mere admis- 
sions ever constitute science.’ The word used in both places 
indicates ‘agreement,’ and points to the fact that the whole 
proof rests on the ‘convention’ which connects its parts and 
prevents its foundations from being criticised. Self-consist- 
ency in the argument is implied in the convention being 
observed. They want to investigate, say, the properties of 


254 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


plane triangles ; they start with such postulates and definitions 
as they think necessary for their purpose (a hypothesis in the 
Greek sense is more like a postulate than what we call a 
hypothesis, which for us often=a ¢hing taken to exist for the 
sake of explanation), and conclude to certain properties and 
relations of plane triangles. But the question, ¢.g., what space 
is, and whether Euclidean space is real or the only real space, 
they will not raise. Aristotle’s account of the ‘ beginnings,’ ele- 
ments, or principles accepted orpostulated by every science, viz., 
the general axioms of knowledge, the existence of the ‘kind’ 
or department of phenomena which it proposes to investigate, 
and the meaning of the principal attributes of that ‘kind’ 
which it proposes to examine, is in substance derived from 
this passage. See Aristotle’s Anal. Post., 76, b. 11. 

233. 4. ‘Summon to their aid visible forms,’ rather say 
visible ‘ shapes,’ to avoid confusion with the ‘forms.’ The 
Greek is the same. 

6. ‘But with their originals,’ lit. ‘but with those to which 
they are like,’ repeating the phrase of 232. 4, 510 a, which 
expressed the relation of the reflected images to the objects 
which cast them.. Of course inaccurate drawing in a mathe- 
matical diagram does not interfere with the demonstration, so 
long as it suggests the right train of ideas; which shows that 
the drawing is a mere aid to the mind, and is not itself the 
matter discussed. 

g. ‘Absolute square and absolute diameter,’ simply the 
square itself and the diagonal itself, ze the geometrical 
conception of them, not the sensuous images whether drawn 
on paper or reproduced in imagination. 

510 E11. ‘ Which again have their shadows and images in water ’— 
thrown in, probably, to keep the classification in mind and 
point out exactly where we are. The ‘objects’ of common 
sense are mere illustrations in exact science, while they are 
solid realities as compared to reflections and shadows. ‘In 
water’; people look at the sun in water to escape being 
dazzled, e.g. in watching an eclipse.—Phaedo, 99 E. 


BOOK V1. 255 


13. ‘Those abstractions,’ more lit..‘ those very selves ’—z.e. 
the completest mathematical knowledge of the spatial relations 
in question. ‘The eye of thought,’ a common simile to-day. 
Plainly the distinction which it is used to enforce is destroyed 
if we construe thought as a kind of sense-perception, and, like 
it, contemplating an actual pictorial image. 

16. ‘This, then, was the class of things,’ etc.: he is only 511 A 
speaking of one segment of the intelligible world; the 
emphasis is ‘ intellectual, indeed, but hypothetical.’ 

21. ‘ Using as images’: the need of symbols is connected in 
Plato’s mind with the inferior or uncritical quality of the 
knowledge. See above on 227. 30, 506 E,and 228. 15, 507 B. 
It is plain that in proportion as an idea can be appropriately 
represented, by picture-thinking, it must be fragmentary on the 
one hand, and loaded with irrelevant detail on the other. It 
has been pointed out, I think by Mill, that a schoolboy may 
sometimes be thrown out if the diagram of a proposition in 
Euclid, which he is supposed to know well, is put before him 
in an unusual shape, though quite correctly. This proves 
that the irrelevancies of the picture have really interfered with 
the idea, though they are intended not to do so. 

22. ‘Just the copies—accordingly,’ or, as Jowett, ‘ but em- 
ploying the objects, of which the shadows below are resem- 
blances, in their turn as images, they having in relation to 
the shadows and reflections of them a greater distinctness 
and therefore a greater value.’ I think that the parallel of 
233. I1, 510 E is in favour of the latter rendering, in the 
tendency to speak of the shadow segment in order to make 
quite clear at each step how the whole classification coheres. 
If the former rendering is adopted, it is necessary, with Davies 
and Vaughan, to insert something like ‘ vulgarly,’ which is not 
in the Greek, but may be understood out of ‘esteemed’ as 
= ‘held by opinion.’ 

28. ‘The mere reasoning process,’ not ‘nous,’ but ‘logos’ B 
—the impersonal reason, or drift of the argument as such. 

29. ‘By the force of dialectic,’ ‘by the power of (self) 


256 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


converse.’ ‘Dialectic,’ no doubt, even as a scientific ideal, 
retains for Plato the associations of give and take in conversa- 
tion. It is essentially putting a position and criticising it and 
then advancing upon it, as well as classifying. Its two sides, 
indeed, are construction and criticism. 

30. ‘Not as first principles, but as genuine hypotheses.’ 
Taking experience or knowledge as a whole, an ordinary 
science, we said, begins anywhere in the middle, so that it 
treats its own postulates or assumptions (¢.g. common space) 
as if they were ultimates or first principles, which they are not. 
Dialectic, on the contrary, will force each grade of knowledge 
to admit that its hypotheses are not first principles but are 
mere hypotheses; ¢.g. it will criticise the conception of space, 
and endeavour to assign its rank in the whole of experience. 

32. ‘Something that is not hypothetical.’ Cf. previous page, 
232. 24, 510 B. Here it is.explained by the addition ‘the 
first principle of everything,’ or perhaps quite literally, ‘the 
beginning of the whole,’ z.e. the principle which after we have 
in a fair degree ‘unified’ experience, appears to give a 
sufficient clue or starting-point for understanding it and ad- 
justing its elements to one another. Of course knowledge is 
only hypothetical in as far as it is partial or determined by an 
abstraction, such that there is a reserve of omitted elements, 
which may, so to speak, take us in flank and revenge 
themselves for our neglect of them. All special sciences are 
in this sense avowedly hypothetical ; they as it were cultivate 
their own gardens and pay no heed to geography or the 
planetary system. See quotation from Mill’s Logic on 232. 
21 above. But the whole of experience, in so far as we can 
make any judgments about it at all, is not hypothetical, for 
nothing falls outside it; and if we carefully scrutinise what 
we mean, it becomes plain that to suggest that the whole of 
experience might be other than it is, or is perhaps not veadly 
what it is for ws, is strictly and absolutely nonsense. For 
only experience can indicate a sense in which any assertion 
can be understood, and all experience falls within the whole 


BOOK VI. 257 


of experience. Thus, if and in so far as we can make 
assertions which characterise the whole of experience, so far 
we have hold of something unhypothetical, which we can 
employ in criticising the unadjusted elements that press upon 
us. Note that in every judgment that has any truth at 
all, there is, however much disguised, an unhypothetical— 
categorical or absolute—element. So, Plato says in this 
passage, we shall employ our principle—not, of course, a 
mere abstraction, but some vital idea or set of ideas which 
the organisation of our intellectual world has suggested—in 
criticising or organising first the regions bordering upon 7¢ 
(viz., on the matter in which we have first realised it), then 
again the regions at the margin of those, and so on until our 
system reaches its close, or rounded completion (end). Such 
a criticised system can from its nature contain no element of 
sensuous data as such ; for, as explained 248. 1, 524 c below, 
criticism of sensuous data necessarily raises them into the in- 
tellectual sphere by discrimination and systematic connection. 
We shall employ, therefore, no merely sensible experience 
whatever, our world being already organised in science, art, 
morality, and religion, in none of which can any mere sense- 
perception be presented to us, but the mind proceeds as he 
says ‘with forms themselves, by their means and issuing in 
them (lit., ‘and to them’), and terminates in forms.’ The 
student should dismiss, for the moment at least, all the 
associations. of popular thought which connect terms like a 
priori and a posteriori with the absence and presence of 
sensuous detail, and should try to look steadily and freshly at 
the actual processes of science in their relation to sensuous 
detail on the one hand and to philosophy on the other, noting 
on what kind of results and contentions any great naturalist 
or philosopher, however devoted to experience, really lays 
stress, and what sort of rank and value the mere sensuous 
impressions of the moment, which we construe as derived 
from some natural object or from some political incident, 
are found to possess in comparison to the elaborated theory 
R 


258 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


of evolution as applied to nature or to national life. So far as 
method and purpose are concerned, Plato’s description of 
science and philosophy as an attempt to reduce experience to 
a unity focussed in principles is as true of Hume, Darwin, 
and Mill as of Kant or Hegel. 

42. ‘The field of real existence and pure intellect.’ I re- 
translate the paragraph from this point to ‘ pure reason’ as the 
shortest way of explaining it: ‘that the part of what zs and of the 
intelligible world which is considered by the science of dialectic, 
is more certain (‘clear’ including ‘true,’ as we say ‘that is 
clear’) than the part which is dealt with by what are called the 
arts (not fine arts, but the mathematical sciences—geometry, 
é.g., was practical in its origin, so too astronomy : see account 
of them in Book vit.), in which the only first principles are 
their assumptions; and though their students are obliged to 
study the subject with their understanding and not with their 
sense-perception, yet because they do not examine it with 
reference to a (true) first principle, you think that ¢Aey have 
no intelligence of it (same phrase as ‘possessed of reason,’ 
230. 16, see note on 230. 13) though in connection with 
a first principle it can be intelligently known.’ The ‘in- 
telligible ’ world (‘ noéton’), as defined in the division of the 
line, includes the world of intelligence (‘nous,’ Davies and 
. Vaughan’s ‘reason’) or dialectic, and also the world of ‘under- 
standing’ or abstract mathematics. These names, ‘reason’ or 
‘intelligence,’ and ‘understanding,’ have quite general meanings 
in Greek usage, and are only beginning to be defined by 
Plato’s adoption of them. Henceforward ‘nous’ is usually the 
supreme or concrete mode of mind which sees a principle in 
all its details, and might appear to have a right to the 
rendering ‘reason’ which Davies and Vaughan give it, often 
calling it ‘pure reason.’ But ‘reason’ has so little definite 
meaning in English, and the associations of ‘pure reason’ 
are so utterly misleading (indicating an attempt to hypostasise 
the ideas of reason beyond the limits of experience) that it 
seems better to adopt the fresher term ‘intelligence,’ which 


BOOK VI. 259 


preserves the original connection of ‘nous’ with the ‘noéton’ 
or intelligible world. I have just explained that ‘nous’ far 
excellence (in 234. 16 ‘noésis’) is here confined to the upper 
region of this ‘intelligible’ or non-sensuous sphere. The use 
of ‘understanding’ for the mathematical faculty corresponds 
fairly with the philosophical sense of ‘ understanding’ as the 
abstract mode of mind. 

234. 19. ‘To partake of distinctness in a degree,’ etc. ‘ Dis- 
tinctness, the same word as 231. 35, 509 E, where the line is 
being divided, and akin to the word ‘ clear,’ see note 233. 42, 
which refers to the object. Distinctness of position and con- 
text in the world of knowledge, like distinctness in the day- 
light world contrasted with the dark, gives certainty, which 
is also implied in the term distinctness, referring in this place 
to the state of mind. Its correlative is ‘truth’ or ‘trueness’ 
or ‘ reality,’ here as throughout a property of what is known, 
not of knowledge as referred to the mind. ‘Trueness’ is not 
indeed strictly confined to objects of Knowledge, though 
primarily it applies to them. (See note 230. 13, 508 c.) 

There is a parallel passage in the Phzlebus which throws 
some light on the precise implication which this set of 
divisions had for Plato’s mind, and I set out the two schemes 
in tabular form.! Note that, of the three divisions at close of 
Book v., ‘ignorance’ with its correlative ‘not-being’ is here 
omitted, and ‘science’ and ‘seeming’ each subdivided. This 
shows that ‘ignorance’ and ‘not-being’ were mere limits of 
the field of ‘knowledge’ and ‘ being.’ 


1 See following page. 


260 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


Philebus, 62 A-C. 
Cfd. with discussion of arts and sciences, 74. 55 D—5sq9 D. 


1. Understanding about Justice’s self, what it zs, and other 
realities (Philosophy). 


(58E—59 A. Dialectic deals with permanent and uniform 
matters, not the genesis and dissolution of the world, 
as do those who inquire into nature.) 


2. Understanding of the divine (real) circle and sphere and 
the like (Mathematics). 


(Arithmetic, etc., are of two kinds: applied in practice 
with unequal units, or pursued scientifically, with 
equal or ideal units, 56 D and E£.) 


3. Art of the false (carpenter’s) rule and circle and the 
like (Exact Handicraft). 


(55 £. Distinction between carpentering and the theory 
of space and number as between practical and theo- 
retical elements of handicraft.) 


4. Arts, like music, which dispense with exact measure- 
ment and depend on mere rule-of-thumb or practice, guess- 
work and imitation: cf. 55 E. (Rule-of-thumb). 


BOOK V1. 261 


Republic, Book vi. end: cf. vil., 533-4. 


Intelligible world, 
510 B, cf. 534 A, deals 
with what zs, 534. 


World of seeming 
or opinion, //. cc., deals 
with what changes, or 
perishes and begins 
again, 534. On mean- 
ing of ‘belief,’ see 


345. I, 602 A. 


Q 


, 1. Lntelligence or Science. Criticism 
in light of first principle ; which 
is ‘form of good.’ 


2. (Abstract) understanding. Works 
with uncriticised hypotheses ; 
mathematical sciences employ- 





< 


\ ing symbols. 


, 3. Belief. Practical common-sense. 
Organic creation and industrial 
productions. 


4. The faculty of images. Images, 
representations or likenesses. 
Guesswork, art, poetry, rhetoric, 

\ etc., and imagination. 





262 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


The comparison with the PAzlebus suggests that the ‘eternal’ 
content of dialectic corresponded chiefly to moral and esthetic 
qualities; to them the criticism of scientific assumptions 
insisted on in the Repudlic would add a logical system. The 
mathematical sciences or arts themselves are regarded very 
pregnantly as the scientific elements abstracted out of the 
handicrafts, and studied for their own sake as a branch of 
pure science ; especially the contrast of the material and ideal 
unit (Philebus, 56 D, E) throws much light on the discussion of 
arithmetic in Republic, vii. The commendation of carpentering, 
house-building, and ship-building, for their constant reliance 
on rule and compass, etc., in comparison with music which is 
said to proceed by mere sensuous practice, guesswork, trying 
to hit (the note), and imitation, 55 © and 62 Cc (ze. to be 
guided throughout by a mere feeling of likeness), and with 
medicine, agriculture, seamanship, and strategy, apparently for 
analogous reasons, goes far to explain the distinction between 
‘belief’ and ‘conjecture’ within the world of seeming and 
sense-perception ; but for this more especially see ep. x., 
- 345. 1, 602 A. The small part occupied by ‘forms’ of ‘things’ 
in the subject-matter of dialectic, here and elsewhere in Plato, 
is surely owing to the simple fact that ¢hings, te. separate 
objects in space, have no tenable reality for the higher grades 
of science and philosophy, but turn into phases of evolution 
and examples of law or purpose. The ‘bed’ in Repudlic, 
x., Clearly illustrates this, if we attend to the way in which it 
is described. Of course ‘things’ enter into science, but not 
as things. See Author’s Zogic, i. 138, and Bradley’s Appear- 
ance and Reality, pp. 71-4. 


BOOK VII 


Beginning of Book vil.—238. 23, 517 A. 

Simile of the cave, being a continuation of the simile which 
compares the Sun to the Good, by comparing the lower grades of 
reality to objects illuminated and shadows projected by an tin- 
Jerior source of light. The principal point of the simile lies in in- 
sisting on the false sense of reality whith uncriticised associations 
acquire for a mind which has never been led to feel their incon- 
sistency, and on the necessity and possibility of learning, by educa- 
tion and experience, to apprehend a coherent and concrete world, 
Jrom which the mind looks back on the guesswork or associative 
imagination of tts uneducated past as on a procession of shadows 
or likenesses connected by contiguity. 


235. 2. ‘So far as education and ignorance,’ more literally, 
‘education and want of education.’ This is the problem 
throughout this part of the epuwdblic—what sort of differ- 
ence education makes in man and in what direction it 
leads him. The emphasis is on the point that though man 
has access to wholly different worlds, yet these are only 
stages of his mental progress, and the higher include ee that 
was real in the lower. 

4. ‘An underground cavernous chamber’ or dwelling-place. 
Plato’s account of the uneducated consciousness may at least 
be illustrated by that which Aeschylus gives of the cave- 
dweller’s life. 

‘ How first beholding, they beheld in vain, 


And hearing heard not, but like shapes in dreams 
263 


Sect. 72. 


5SIZA 


5I5A 


B 


C 


264 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


Mixed all things wildly down the tedious time ; 

Nor knew to build a house toward the Sun 

With walls of brick, nor any woodwork knew. 

But lived like silly ants beneath the ground 

In hollow caves unsunned.’—Prometheus Bound, 1. 447. 
Mrs. Browning’s trans. modified. 


Aeschylus represents the use of number as one of the chief 
changes from the dream-world of primitive man: cf. 245, 13, 
522 Cc below. Plato is rather portraying the dweller in a 
civilised world, whose mental state, so far as sunk in mere 
association and superstition, is analogous to that ascribed by 
the poet to primitive man. 

8. ‘So shackled’; for the nature of the fetters see 241. 1, 
519 B. 

27. ‘Seen anything of themselves or of each other.’ They 
have never observed the genuine facts of human nature in 
themselves or in others. They think that they have a clear 
idea of their own character and relation to their neighbours, 
but really the image which does duty in their mind for such 
an idea is a mere phantasm projected by a false light of senti- 
ment or association. 

32. ‘Of the things carried past.’ They have looked at 
everything from a single fixed standpoint, and have therefore, 
in each case, an impression derived from some superficial 
aspect of the thing or business, which bears a more or less 
remote resemblance to the fact, but yet is the only represen- 
tative of the fact in their minds. 

236. 11. ‘The shadows of those manufactured articles’ ‘to 
be the only realities,’ literally ‘the true.’ (See 230. 13, 508 c 
and note.) The restriction to things made by man seems to be 
dictated by the necessities of the simile, for they do not rank 
as less real than natural objects, 232. 6, 510 a above. Their 
inferiority to objects in the daylight world lies only in their 
being seen by an inferior light. The argument for the 
secondary reality of the products of industrial art in Book x. 
must apply ultimately to all material objects, and can make 


BOOK Vi. 265 


no radical difference between, say, a bed and a tree. But 
in the artificial surroundings of the simile, detached natural 
objects—trees, real animals, and the like—would be out of 
place. I take it that the human bearers of the things are not 
supposed to rise above the wall so as to throw a shadow. It 
might be urged that the higher division of the cave world 
ought to be a copy of, or inferior to, the lower division of the 
surface world, viz., the shadows and reflections. I do not 
mention this as if literal consistency in a comparison like the 
present could be necessary or possible, but to bring out the 
point that the analogy between the worlds interferes with their 
continuity, and is the more important feature. Each lower 
division is abstract, and each higher is concrete. Therefore 
the higher division of the lower of the two worlds (either in 
the simile or in the reality) cannot be strictly a copy of the 
lower division of the world above it; the relation is rather 
that each world as a whole is a likeness of that above it, and 
is analogous thereto by the relation of its parts. I do not 
think that either rendering of 233. 22, 511 A seriously inter- 
feres with this conception of the parallelism, though Jowett’s 
is more favourable to it. But to find resemblances between 
the lower part of one world and the higher of that below is 
obviously possible though the latter is not fully correspondent 
to the former. . 

19. ‘ Towards the light,’ viz., the fire in the cave. 

25. ‘Nearer to reality and is turned to things more real,’ 515 D 
more literally, ‘nearer to being and is turned to what in a 
higher degree zs.’ 

28. ‘The several objects,’ the figures, etc., which throw the 
shadows. 

32 and 33. ‘Truer.’ See note on line r1 and reference. 

37. ‘Shrink and turn away’: a striking portrait of the mind’s 
behaviour in face of criticism directed upon customary associa- 
tions, until the ‘ drag towards reality ’ which comes of feeling 
it intolerable to rest in contradictions has fairly been estab- 
lished. (See 245. 43, 523 4.) Note how thoroughly Plato 


266 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


emphasises the relativity of mind and experience to each other, 
which is the true root of every reasonable doctrine of ‘other 
worlds,’ as is distinctly exhibited in this passage, which sums 
up the contentions of Books v. and v1. 

516A 42. ‘ Vexed and indignant.’ The fact may be observed in 
any department of experience when people are called upon 
not merely to exercise common-sense criticism, which was 
the first step in the transition, but to submit their ‘common- 
sense’ facts and principles themselves to the analysis of 
abstract science, and subsequently of philosophy. 

237. 3. ‘True,’ as above, a quality of objects of knowledge. 

5. ‘ Habit will be necessary.’ Psychologically speaking, what 
underlies the necessity of habituation is what would now be 
called the formation of appercipient systems. 

6 ff. ‘At first he will be most successful.’ The subdivisions 
of the surface world are amplified and run together as com- 
pared with the statement of them, 231. 30, 509 E, by taking 
in the less formal account of the simile, 230. 2, 508 Cc. 
According to 23I. 30, shadows and reflections form one seg- 
ment or division, and all the rest, from ‘the realities ’ (literally 
‘themselves’) to the sun inclusive, would fall within the 
higher segment. The distinction of ‘ objects seen by daylight, 
the heavenly bodies, and the sun,’ seems to pave the way for 
a difference in grades of reality within the science of forms 
itself, as e.g. between the forms of things, the forms of natural 
laws, and moral or spiritual qualities, and the form of the 
good. Cf. 238. 26 ff, 517 B. 

B20 ‘His next step will be.’ As he becomes capable of under- 
standing the visible world as a whole or as a working system, 
he will learn to regard the sun as the dispenser of fertility and 
the measure of time, and as indirectly the cause even of the 
secondary light and existence of the cave-dwellers. Cf. 231. 
2,509 B. ‘The sun is of course not really the cause of the 
order which the solar system exhibits, but is so important a 
factor in that order, that a pictorial simile may fairly treat him 
as a symbol of it. His relation to the ‘fire’ in the cave may 


BOOK VI. 267 


be illustrated by the modern thought that all the artificial 
heat which we employ is a liberation of stored-up solar 
energy. 

34. ‘And who remembered best all that used to precede and 516 C 
follow and accompany it, and from these data divined’ : induc- 
tion conceived as inference from particulars to particulars, its 
test being prediction (not explanation), and its method being 
association of images or unanalysed likenesses, by contiguity 
in co-existence or succession. It should be understood that 
what is valuable in this method is not lost—or need not 
necessarily be lost—by the advance to more analytic know- 
ledge. We all of us judge of many matters by the look and 
the feeling, e.g. of the weather; as when there is a certain 
look about the clouds and feel in the air which makes us 
expect rain or sunshine. Savages no doubt have this 
judgment in a high degree, but many highly-trained men of 
science have it also, e.g. physicians and skilled experimenters 
of all kinds. But if all life is immersed in this bare associa- 
tional mechanism, if we fail to purify and rationalise the 
connections which influence us, then we remain in Plato’s 
cave, the victims of mere customary aspects and resem- 
blances which we have never tried to ‘ get behind’ or ‘to look 
at allround.’ The shadows are not ‘ particulars’ in the sense 
of fully particularised ideas, but ‘likenesses,’ superficial and 
indefinite, on which mere ‘likelihoods’ rest. (Cf. old English 
‘like’ for ‘likely.’) 

238. 2. ‘Rather than entertain those opinions,’ or perhaps, D 
‘rather than be so the victim of seeming.’ The quotation 
from the Odyssey, ii. 489, has a curious felicity, being the 
words of Achilles in expressing his detestation of the world of 
shades (lit. shadows) in comparison with the world of human 
life. 

11. ‘To deliver his opinion again’: the compensation for E 
this passing disadvantage is not mentioned here, but see 242. 
22, 520 Cc, ‘For when habituated, you will see a thousand 
times better than the residents (in the cave),’ etc. 


268 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


517A 21. ‘Put him to death.’ The fate of Socrates is of course 
in Plato’s mind, though Socrates himself is the speaker. 


Sect. 73. 238. 24, 517 A—243. 30, 521 B: interpretation of the allegory, 
Jollowed by method and consequences of the educational ascent. 
The method ts Conversion ; the consequences are unity of aim, 
and a high-mindedness which is the guarantee of true public 
spirit. 


B 238. 25. ‘ Apply in all its parts to our former statements,’ z.e. 
it is an allegorical representation of our ‘ education and want 
of education’ (Book vil. beginning) according to the scheme 
of mental stages set out at the close of Book vt. 

34. ‘In the world of knowledge,’ lit., ‘in the Known,’ same 
word as 196. 9, 479 D, not the term derived from ‘ nous’ and 
usually rendered ‘ intellectual’ or ‘intelligible.’ The emphasis 
of the translation seems hardly right ; rather, ‘in the world of 
knowledge, the form of good is perceived last and with 
difficulty, but when perceived,’ etc., ze. this is the point on 
which the simile insists as the resemblance between the sun 
and the good. (See previous Section.) 

C 38. ‘Bright and beautiful’: ‘bright’ apparently a misprint 
for ‘right.’ 

41. ‘Truth and reason,’ quality of object and that of 
mind ; ‘reality and intelligence,’ see 230. 22 ff. and notes. 

42. ‘Must keep this Form of Good before his eyes.’ ‘The 
reader should bear in mind throughout the conception of 
good as that which anything is good for, so that (see close of 
Book 1.) the excellence of anything is that quality in it by 
which it fulfils its function or work. With this conception 
before us, a passage like the present explains itself. 

239. 5. ‘ Unwilling to take part in the affairs of men.’ Cp. 
27-8. 346-7 above. ‘This is to us, as here crudely stated, an 
unattractive feature in Plato’s perfect man, and the world he 
belongs to, but its true bearing is made plain in the account 
of ‘ high-mindedness’ below, 241-3. 520-1. 


BOOK VI. — 269 


18. ‘Shadows of justice,’ or images which throw the 517 D 
shadows’ ; ‘images,’ rather ‘statues’ or solid figures, referring 
to the objects which throw shadows in the cave. These solid 
figures correspond therefore to the ‘realities’ with which we 
deal in the common-sense world of practice ; here, perhaps, to 
the actual laws of the state. Then the shadows cast by them 
might be taken as the interested and distorted representation 
of these in the pleaders’ arguments. (Nettleship in He//enica, 
p. 141 note.) The difference between the different worlds 
must not make us forget the positive relation which Plato 
sees between them; the actual laws and the pleaders’ argu- 
ments are attempts to copy or embody the actual principles of 
justice which are involved in human nature and society and 
the course of the world. Carlyle has said somewhere that 
after all no man struggles for what has absolutely no shadow 
of right or justice ; it is always some aspect or distorted con- 
ception of a true right that, at bottom, he is fighting for. This 
is a good illustration of Plato’s thought. 

21. ‘The essential features of justice,’ lit., ‘justice herself’ — 
z.e. according to Plato’s account of justice, the system of 
society as giving scope to true individuality while repressing 
interference which thwarts it. 

43. ‘The real nature of education is at variance’; the 518 B 
point here insisted on as to educational method is really the 
same as that emphasised by the metaphor of nurture through- 
out the first education. Mind is not a structure that is put 
together out of heterogeneous parts, like a product of industry, 
but is one, homogeneous, alive, and can receive nothing 
except by being solicited in such a way as to produce the 
required result out of itself. Thus educational method 
comes to be practically a question of ‘conversion’ of the 
mind as a whole, ze. of directing attention so as to transfigure 
experience. Nothing can be known which is not lived. 
Thus the question ‘can true goodness—the vision of the 
good—be taught?’ is answered Yes and No—wot as (we 
should say) dates and facts can be crammed, not even as 


270 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


military courage or mechanical method and punctuality or 
skill in routine business can be imparted by habit and 
training (see below, 26, 518); but yet true wisdom can be 
developed by a conversion of the whole intelligence, 7.e. by 
such a direction of attention as leads to an enlargement and 
re-organisation of the whole body of experience, which con- 
stitutes a new life. 

518 C. 240. 11. ‘Be wheeled round, 2 company with the entire 
soul. Compare the opening lines of this Book. The whole 
man was in fetters, and the redirection of his attention in- 
volved a complete liberation of him and a complete change 
of position. Here again the pictorial simile necessarily 
breaks up what in truth is a unity. The eye of the soul 
really zs the soul or mind considered as a whole, and that 
is why the eye of the soul—the focus or unity of experience 
—cannot be converted apart from the entire mental system 
or body of experience. 

21. ‘It assumes that he possesses it’ because it zs the 
mind. 

D 26. ‘The other so-called virtues of the soul,’ rather, ‘ the 
other excellences commonly said to be of the soul.’ ‘Seem 
to’ should qualify ‘pre-exist’ and ‘are formed’ as well 
as ‘resemble.’ Plato is adopting common opinion. — Strictly, 
all excellences, bodily and mental, must be developed on the 
basis of pre-existing qualities ; but in regard to partial accom- 
plishments or abilities, the scope of training and habit is rela- 
tively very great, and it may roughly be said that you can 
teach them to any one, who otherwise will not have them, 
just as you teach him to row or to swim. With wisdom the 
case is different ; it is the central development of the capacity 
which in fact zs the mind, and which must make itself evident 
for good or evil in every human creature. 

E21. ‘A more divine substance which never loses its energy’: 
‘substance’ is an insertion. ‘Somewhat more divine, which 
never loses its power’ (or faculty). 

32. ‘By change of position,’ lit., ‘by conversion.’ 


BOOK VII. 271 


36. ‘How sharply they see through the things’; all this 519 A 
serves as an explanation and modification of the principle 
that Goodness is Knowledge. (See 225. 505.) They are 
thorough masters of their ‘world’ or point of view, but they 
have never been led to see life asa whole. Therefore their 
knowledge is imperfect as well as their character. Cp. 106. 34, 
409 D. 

241. 1. ‘Stripped of those leaden earth-born weights.’ The 
fetters which hold men in the cave and hinder their conver- 
sion are not merely intellectual, but moral. (See 349. 41, 
605 B.) 

13. ‘Those who are suffered to linger over their education C 
all their lives’: a remarkable phrase, showing an almost con- | 
temptuous sensitiveness to the defects of a life devoid of 
practical experience. 

16. ‘No single mark in life’; the meaning of this is plain if 
we bear in mind the underlying conception of Good. Cp. 238. 
42, 517c. The word ‘mark’ recurs in Aristotle in a sense 
almost equivalent to ‘end’ (telos). See #7hics, vi. 1, 1, and 
Stewart’s note. The notion of life as bound into a whole by 
principle and purpose lay deep in Greek thought. The 
opposite feeling, as expressed for example by Jocasta, Soph. 
O. T., 979, ‘Tis best to live at random, as one may,’ has a 
suggestion of blasphemy. It is said in insolent triumph at 
the supposed falsehood of a divine prediction, which soon 
proves too true. 

33. ‘Are we to do them a wrong?’ The question is now p 
raised, how far and in what sense their high-mindedness is to 
be compatible with public spirit or conducive to it. Cp. onthe 
whole discussion 27. 8, 346-7 above. : 

36. ‘How some one class is to live extraordinarily well.’ Cp. E 
Book iv. beginning. The life of one citizen, he goes on to 
explain, cannot be considered apart from that of the others, 
because this would be an unreal point of view, seeing that it 
cannot exist apart. In a disorganised commonwealth, there 
is indeed greater laxity of interdependence, and it may be (cp. 


272 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


242. 13, 520, with 214. 2 ff., 496 c) that in such a common- 
wealth the philosopher is useless, and therefore imperfect even 
as a philosopher. But in proportion as unity is realised a 
truer relation prevails. 

520C 242. 22. ‘You will see a thousand times better.’ This sup- 
plies a thought which was not touched on in the statement of 
the allegory, and justifies us in understanding that the thinker 
who does not re-descend into active life is the less complete 
even as a thinker, for he has not all experience which he 
might have. 

23. ‘ What each image is, and what is its original.’ ‘Image’ 
is here ‘eiddlon,’ a word used e.g. in Homer for the ghosts of 
the dead. It might apply either to the solid figures of the 
cave, or to the shadows on the wall. Note the positive refer- 
ence of the ‘images.’ Each of them does stand for and point 
to a genuine reality. 

24. ‘Because you have seen the realities,’ more lit. 
‘because you have seen the truth of what is beautiful, just, 
and good.’ 

26. ‘The life of the state is a substance and not a phantom,’ 
more lit. ‘is a waking reality and not a dream.’ Cp IgI. 3 ff, 
476c for the contrast of waking and dreaming. This passage 
retorts the claim of Glaucon, 44. 39, 362 4, that the life of the 
unjust man is ‘a course allied to reality.’ Cp. on this whole 
passage Aristotle’s Ezhics, i. 5, on the three lives, with Stewart’s 
note on their relation, from which I extract two passages, 
bracketing the English words where he uses the Greek... . 
‘In the (theoretic life) human nature is not treated as a means, 
but reverenced asanend. To be reverenced as an end it 
must be seen sub specie eternitatis as divine, and this involves 
theoria. ence human nature cannot be maintained as a 

‘logos’ (harmony) in the (practical life) except by one who 
has the (aim) which ¢Aeoria gives. To have this aim it is not 
indeed necessary to be oneself a ‘ philosopher’ or ‘ thinker,’ or 
actually to lead the (theoretic life) strictly so called ; but it is 
necessary to live in a city which has ‘thinkers,’ and is 


BOOK VI. 273 


regulated for the sake of them. . . . Perhaps the (theoretic 
life) is most successfully realised, not as a separate life, but as 
the form of the (citizen) life.’ 


‘The Neoplatonic rendering of the (theoretic life), which 
makes it an ecstatic life of entire freedom from bodily influ- 
ences, is quite foreign to the concrete view of human nature 
taken by Aristotle. Aristotle’s (theoretic life) is the vazson 
@étre of the (city), in the same sense that the (mind) is the 
raison @étre of the (body). We know of no (mind) except 
as correlated with a (body); so we know of no ‘theoria’ 
except as manifested by a civilised man, or (citizen), It is 
true that in the Tenth Book of the Z¢hics he uses language 
which may seem to lend itself to a Neoplatonic rendering ; 
but his object there is to abstract, and present clearly,’ 
the formal principle or theoretic element in actual life, and 
we must be careful not to make ‘a material use’ of this 
merely ‘formal principle,’ and suppose that he asserts the 
possibility or desirability of an actual life of pure ‘theoria’ for 
man, in which the (political animal) should be transformed 
into the (god). The (wise man), as distinguished in the © 
Tenth Book from the (citizen), is as much an abstraction as 
(god) considered apart from the (world).’ 

The above account is as true on the whole of Plato, at least 
in the Republic, as of Aristotle, the root and spirit of whose 
view is entirely Platonic. 

31. ‘That city in which the destined rulers are least eager 520 D 
to rule,’ repeated in effect from 28. 18, 347 D, but now with 
a deeper ground, in the ‘ high-mindedness’ of the true ruler. 

243. 3. ‘A life better than ruling’—not that public spirit E 
will be destroyed, but that it will be the motive for under- 
taking the labour of government. See notes on Ac. in 
previous note. 

8. ‘Beggars and persons who hunger after private advan- 521 A 
tages,’ more lit. ‘persons who are destitute and starving for 
lack of goods of their own, undertake public business, fancying 

S 


521 B 


Sect. 74. 


521 C 


D 


274 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


that it is from thence that their good has to be snatched.’ 
The words ‘ destitute,’ etc., combine the ideas of having no 
veal goods of their own because incapable of them, and of 
being hungry for goods, which ex hypothes¢ therefore are not 
real goods. The contrast is with those described in the line 
before as rich in the real wealth of good and sensible life. 

12. ‘An object of strife’: same Greek word as ‘an object of 
competition,’ 28. 20, 347 D, which see. 

20. ‘Otherwise, their rivals will dispute their claim.’ If 
public spirit is the only motive the main root of quarrel is 
removed, because public spirit does not require that I or he 
in particular should rule, but only that the best ruler should 
rule. It may fairly be noted, in support of Plato’s argument, 
that persons of great gifts and position frequently have so 
many resources in themselves, that, while devoted to their 
public work from public spirit, they feel at the same time a 
certain personal detachment from it, owing to the number 
and depth of other interests which are ae eny soliciting 
their minds. 


243. 31, 521 C—2q45. 2, 522 8B. 

Discussion as to what kind of study is suitable as an instru- 
ment of the ‘conversion, forming a preface to the second or 
scientific and philosophical education. ; 

35. ‘From the nether world,’ lit. ‘from Hades,’ the realm 
of shadows. 

37. ‘The revolution of a soul,’ or, ‘the conversion of a 
soul.’ 

38. ‘From a kind of night-like day’: cp. 230. 2, 508. The 
‘day’ or most waking life of the uneducated soul is like a 
night or dream-life compared to that of the educated mind. 
For the force of the comparison between night and daylight 
bear in mind Zc. 230. 2. 

244. 1. ‘A true day of real existence’: see Zc. in previous 
note; ‘real existence,’ more lit. ‘ what zs.’ 

8. ‘From the fleeting to the real,’ lit. ‘from becoming to 


BOOK VII. 275 


being.’ The popular notion is that expressions of this kind 
in Plato indicate a contrast between the world on the one 
hand as more or less systematically known to an ordinarily 
educated man, with its development, change, and motion in 
some degree unified by thought, and on the other hand some 
fixed arrangement of abstractions, allowing no room for 
change or motion, and such that its contemplation excludes 
attention to the varied spectacle of the world as presented to 
the average civilised man. The degree of truth which such a 
view may contain is far more difficult to estimate than might 
appear at first sight, and the question is complicated by a 
substantial difference which is likely to prevail between the 
point of view of modern metaphysics and that of ordinary 
practical life. (See F. H. Bradley’s Appearance and Reality, 
especially the chapter on ‘ Degrees of Truth and Reality.’) It 
is probably the case that in certain moods and phases of his 
thought Plato applied to the semi-orderly appearance of the 
world of objects and actions, as apprehended by ordinary 
culture, a destructive censure which is only deserved by the 
primitive undiscriminated flux or continuum of sensation, 
itself rather a hypothesis in psychology than a fact of verifiable 
experience. All that can be asked of the student is to 
construe Plato’s meaning not by a reference to hard and fast 
traditional renderings, but first by the details which he himself 
furnishes as the content of his ideas (e.g. in the ‘second 
education’ as the process from becoming to being), and 
secondly, if he desires a philosophical equivalent to Plato’s 
views, by a really careful study of the conceptions which modern 
philosophy may offer as at least a counterpart to Plato’s aspira- 
tions. It is unreasonable to say that Plato’s ‘being’ in 
contrast to ‘becoming’ cannot possibly suggest anything but 
fixed abstractions in contrast to the working system of the 
world, when we know that any modern treatment of the logic 
of science will explain to us how in proportion as we harmonise 
and systematise our knowledge we necessarily cease to view 
the world as an aggregate of sensuous detail, and are compelled 


276 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


to assign to our ‘is’ an increasingly unconditional and in 
variable value. It is strictly true, as Mill points out (Lagzc, 
book iti. 1, 2), that ‘the result of the reasoning (which gives 
the moon’s distance from the earth) zsa general proposition ; 
a theorem respecting the distance, not of the moon in particular, 
but of any inaccessible object.’ As such a theorem, it is, if 
rightly reasoned, unconditionally and invariably true, but as a 
conclusion applying to the moon, it is liable to error or change 
of data, and therefore not unconditionally and invariably true. 
Thus there is a plain meaning for Plato’s distinction, in the 
fact, not that natural objects move and change, but that they 
move and change in ways not as yet reduced to unity by 
science, and therefore involving conditions which prevent our 
judgments about them from being unconditionally true. The 
recognition of this obvious distinction need not in any way 
imply indifference to the importance of explaining the natural 
world, or raising it from the sphere of objects which change 
Jrom what they were taken to be to the sphere of objects which 
in changing only exhibit what they are taken to be. How far 
Plato means this or anything like it we must judge from 
content and details. 

521 E 21. ‘Gymnastic, I believe, is engaged upon the changeable 
and perishing.’ No doubt these terms refer to the immedi- 
ately following expression ‘growth and waste of the body.’ 
Then, it may be said, the case is clear ; because a human body 
grows and wastes, the method which deals with it is set down 
as no true science ; z,e. the eternal or real cannot appear in 
the corporeal’world. But before drawing quite this conclu- 
sion it is only fair to ask Plato’s purpose as given by the 
context. He is looking for a starting-point for the study of 
scientific truth. Should we say that the art of the trainer, or 
the experience of the man in training, gives such a starting- 
point? And if not, why not? Surely because it is a mere 
knack or routine, and has not been brought to scientific 
expression, z.e. to permanent principles. There is no reason, 
e.g., to pronounce that Plato would have denied educational 


BOOK VV. 277 


value to the science of biology. (See examples from Piilebus 
at close of Book v1.) 


30. ‘ Music was only the counterpart of gymnastic.’ Note 522A 


the distinction between music as a fine art and aid in forming 
habits (cp. extract from Phr/ebus, Book vi. end), and music 
as mathematical acoustics, which is one of the sciences em- 
ployed in the second education below. The present passage 
in some degree involves a criticism on the first education in 
as far as it dealt solely with habits and feeling, although this 
of course was explicitly recognised as its principle. For 
further implied criticism on it see 264. 536-7. 

42. ‘The useful arts—we thought degrading.’ (Cp. 88-9. 
395-6, and 213. 2, 495 D and note.) 


245. 3, 522 B—250. 38, 526. 


The science of number is the simplest exercise of reflection, 
which arises from the need for discriminating the ideal unit in 
order to resolve the contradiction presented by the confused per- 
ception. Therefore arithmetic is the beginning of scientific 
education, and the first step into the intelligible world. 


Sect. 75. 


245. 15. ‘ That every art and science is compelled to crave 522 C 


a share in them,’ or ‘to employ their services.’ (Cp. refer- 
ence to Philebus in note, end of Book vi.) 


23. ‘ By the intervention of numbers.’ The use of number D 


is a point now constantly insisted on in connection with the 
distinction between savage and civilised man. It is remark- 
able how conscious the Greeks were of this contrast. (Cp. 
Aeschylus, Prom. V. 459, where the invention of number is 
ascribed to Prometheus. ) 


43. ‘ But no one appears to make the right use of it as a 523A 


thing which tends wholly to draw us towards real existence,’ 
Zé. NO one appreciates its scientific bearing and educational 
use, apart from its practical value. The same criticism might 
have applied to the arithmetical teaching in schools not 
long ago. 


278 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


246. 12. ‘Some of the objects of our perception do not 
stimulate the reflection.’ ‘Reflection’ all through is a term 
precisely correlative to that rendered ‘intellectual’ or ‘intel- _ 
ligible world.’ Plato is here explaining the precise nature of 
the contrast which he has drawn between ‘what is seen and 
not thought,’ and ‘ what is thought and not seen.’ (See next 
note but one.) 

523B 14. ‘Thoroughly appreciated by the perception,’ more lit. 
‘adequately discerned by sense-perception.’ 

16. ‘ Because the perception appears to produce an unsound 
result.’ It is possible to find fault with Plato’s psychology of 
the perceptive judgment on alternative grounds. If ‘aisthesis’ 
=‘ sense,’ modern purism will remind us that sense does not 
judge or assert, and therefore cannot be wrong, as, «¢.g., if 
sugar tastes bitter to me, my mouth being out of order, there 
is yet no mistake unless I say it zs bitter, meaning that the 
change is not merely in my sense-organ. The bitter taste is 
quite real. If, again, ‘aisthesis’=the judgment of percep- 
tion, such as we imply in the assertion ‘I see him,’ or ‘I hear 
the music,’ it is not parted by any absolute gulf from the 
judgment of science, and therefore need not theoretically and 
in every case be ‘unsound.’ But a logic which looks at the 
great divisions of knowledge as they actually exist, and takes 
account of their substantive character, will dismiss these 
objections as formal, and will observe that the judgment of. 
perception, so long’as it lingers in what.we know as sense- 
perception, must be more or less unsound, and for the exact 
reason which Plato assigns, viz., that it is confused (248. 
I, 524 C), and therefore cannot designate a pure, true, or 
relevant connection. 

19. ‘Painting in perspective,’ lit. ‘painting in shadow’: 
cp. 346. 12, 602, where it is rendered ‘art of drawing.’ It 
must mean something like imitating sculpture with deceptive 
effect on a flat surface. Plato’s attention to ocular illusions is 
remarkable, and shows how he had studied the difficulties of 
the perceptive judgment. (See Zc. and Theaetetus.) 


BOOK VII. 279 


22. ‘I regard as non-stimulants,’ or, ‘I regard as not invit- 
ing (to reflection), all that do not come out to a contrary 
perception at the same moment.’ 

27. ‘Communicates two equally vivid but contradictory 523 C 
impressions,’ more lit. ‘when the perception indicates no 
more this than the contrary.’ 

34. ‘Ona close inspection,’ merely to show that he is not 
speaking of misjudgment caused by distance, as suggested 18 
above. , 

39. ‘ Be in the middle or outside.’ (Cp. 247. 10, 523 E.) 

41. ‘The mind seldom feels compelled to ask’; rather, D 
‘the mind of the multitude (¢.¢. the ordinary mind) is not 
forced to ask.’ 

43. ‘Because in no instance has the sight informed the 
mind.’ Mind contrasted with sight is a slip if pressed; of 
course they must be taken as whole and part. The law of 
contradiction as used in Book tv. is of course in Plato’s 
mind throughout this discussion. He is preparing, as there, 
to escape the contradiction by a distinction. The antithesis 
between the class-name of a thing, which does not stir up 
reflection, and the contrary relations which do, is only one 
of degree. Many a plant has a look which causes us to ‘ask 
our reflection’ which of two species it belongs to. But 
commonly a ‘thing’ carries its own point of view with it, 
and imposes it on us as unmistakable. 

247. 7. ‘The relative sizes of the fingers.’ This loses the E 
simplicity of the Greek, ‘does the sight adequately see the 
greatness and smallness of them,’ viz., I suppose, which of 
them is to be called ‘long’ and which ‘short.’ The third 
finger will look long compared with the little finger, and short 
compared with the middle one. Cf. close of Book v. 

10. ‘In the middle, or at the outside.’ If the third finger, 
which is intermediate in length, were not between the middle 
and the little finger, the contrast of length would look very 
different. 

18. ‘It feels the same thing to be both hard and soft.’ It 524A 


280 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


makes no difference of principle whether we here think of two 
perceptions of the same thing after different comparisons, 
which is the easiest form of experiment, or of simultaneous 
perception with the two hands, which may be made to feel 
the same water cool and warm, or of conflicting, or rapidly 
successive contrary associations within the same continuous 
perception, which Plato seems to have in mind. An elastic 
surface may well remind us of both hardness and softness, 
and perhaps the fact that it does so partly accounts for a 
peculiar sort of interest which attaches to elastic bodies. 

524B 29. ‘To call in the aid of reasoning and reflection,’ or, 
perhaps, ‘ reckoning and reflection.’ 

30. ‘Whether each announcement’; or rather, ‘ whether 
each of the matters announced is one (element) or two. 

33- ‘Should it incline to the latter view,’ etc. ; more simply, 
‘and if two, either element will be one and distinct (from the 
other).’ 

37. ‘If then each is one,’ etc. ; or rather, ‘if then either 
(element) is one, and both together are two, the mind will 
understand (verb from which term for ‘ intelligible’ comes) 
the two as separate. For if not separate, it would have 
understood them as one, not as two.’ 

C 42. ‘The sense of sight, we say, gave us an impression’ ; 
rather, ‘sight, too (so far like mind), beheld both a great and 
a small, only, in its case, not separate, but as a confused 
somewhat.’ 

248. 4. ‘Reflection, reversing the process of the sight’; 
rather, ‘but to make this impression clear, reflection, in its 
turn, was obliged to see a great and a small, not confused 
together but distinguished, which is just the opposite of what 
sight saw.’ ‘ Distinguished’ and ‘separate’ mean the same 
in this passage, though the words thus rendered have different 
bearings in later philosophy. 

g. ‘Is it not some contradiction of this ‘kind?’ more lit. 
‘then is it not from this, or thereabouts, that it first occurs to 
us to ask?’ 


BOOK Vil. — 281 


13. ‘ Objects of reflection and objects of sight.’ The same 
words are used as 228. 15, 507 B, where ‘pure reason’ has 
unluckily been dragged into the rendering. There the object 
of ‘reflection’ is the principle which unifies a complex of 
phenomena, here it is the relation which is distinguished 
within a complex sense-perception. Of course the two are 
aspects of the same universal. ‘Smallness,’ e.g., when dis- 
criminated in a certain comparison, is a point of view under 
which many related phenomena may be ranked. The 
‘unseen’ world thus described is the unseen as not accessible 
to mere sight, but not to be taken as excluding all elements 
which arise out of sense. And even when Plato goes so far 
as to speak of knowledge in which zo element of sense is 
employed, it will be found difficult to make sure that he is 
excluding-anything which modern thought would include, if we 
consider how little belief modern psychology retains in units 
of sensation unmodified by the whole intellectual state. (See, 
e.g., James’s Textbook of Psychology, pp. 12 and 13.) 

20. ‘ Everything that strikes upon the senses in conjunction 
with its immediate opposite’ ; everything that announces itself 
as a focus of attributes depending on relations, as in the school 
puzzle, ‘ How can the rat’s tail be /ong if the elephant’s (longer) 
tail is short?’ The rat’s tail, when thus compared, appears 
both long and short, because of the conflict between the 
relation of proportion to the rat’s body, and of actual length 
to the elephant’s tail. The answer lies in distinguishing the 
relations. This is the field of the abstracting and discriminat- 
ing relational consciousness. With ‘things’ conflicting points 
of view do not so readily arise ; there is a predominant point 
of view which asserts itself. A rat is a rat, and suggests no 
contrary, unless perhaps it is a water-rat, which is not a true 
rat at all. 

29. ‘If unity, in and by itself, is thoroughly grasped by 
the sight or any other sense, like the finger we spoke of’; the 
point is that the unit is always ideal, and is in fact determined 
by a selective apprehension which is involved in all counting, 


524 D 


282 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


and supplies the answer to the question ‘ What are you 
counting?’ The ‘thing’ (finger) is here accepted as a natural 
unit (and indeed it is the most natural unit), but even it can 
only enter into an enumeration on the ground of a common 
nature which is relevant to the purpose of the enumeration 
and prescribes its limit. Perhaps on this point I may refer to 
my Logic, i. 154, or Knowledge and Reality, p. 78. (Cp. 
Sigwart’s Logic, section 66.) 

524 E 32. ‘If some contradiction is always’ seen along with it, 
so that it seems no more one than not one, z.e. if the unit is 
never given to sense, but has always to be made by ideal 
selection within a manifold, then the question is forced upon 
the mind, ‘ What is the unit, or unity, itself?’ 

525A 39. ‘And thus the study of the unit’ will attract the mind 
to the consideration of what 2s, e.g. of the truth or fact implied 
in the act of enumeration or the predication of number. (See 
my Logic, /.c.) 

249. 1. ‘The same thing presents at the same moment,’ 
more lit. ‘we see the same at the same moment as one and 
as infinite in plurality.’ The whole perception is one, its 
parts or elements may be subdivided without limit. 

3. ‘Is it not also the case with all numbers’ ; z.e. all number 
is the record of counting, which is a process of ideal selection. 

B- 15. ‘Because he is bound to rise above the changing,’ etc.; 
rather, ‘because he can never become an arithmetician without 
rising above the changing,’ etc., z.e. to become an arithmetician 
will force him to rise above the changing, etc. 

C 24. ‘Until, by the aid of pure reason, they have attained to 
the contemplation of the nature of numbers,’ ‘ pure reason’= 
‘reflection itself’ or ‘sheer reflection.’ The substantive is the 
same as that rendered ‘reflection,’ 248. 4, 524 c and after; 
perhaps ‘till’ they come to look at the nature of the numbers 
by sheer reflection.’ The contrast here insisted on, between 
a study of the properties and implications of number, and its 
use for practical purposes, is well illustrated by the reference 
to Philebus, end of Book vi., note. See also 34, 525 D below 


BOOK VII. 283 


‘for the sake of knowledge and not for purposes of 
trade.’ : 

29. ‘From the changeable to the true and the real.’ The 
changeable is ‘ genesis’ or becoming. (See note 244. 8, 521 D.) 

37. ‘It mightily draws the soul upwards.’ Note the warning, 525 D 
254. 22, 529 A below, against a materialistic, which is also a 
mystical misapprehension of this simple metaphor. ‘Abstract 
numbers,’ lit. ‘ the numbers themselves.’ 

250. 1. ‘ If you divide it into pieces, they multiply it back E 
again,’ lit. ‘if you cut it up, they multiply it. The exact 
allusion is not certain. Perhaps it means that they regard 
division of the unit as multiplication, each part being, gua 
unit, as good as the original unit (not, as with a material 
object, something less). At all events, the general sense is 
that in number what we count as one is reckoned as one, and 
no more nor less, whatever may be the nature and variations 
of the numerable matter. 

3. ‘To prevent the unit from ever losing its unity,’ etc., 
more lit. ‘for fear the unit should ever be exhibited as not 
one, but many parts.’ 

10, ‘Every unit is equal, each to each—and contains 526A 
within itself no parts.’ (Cp. also note with reference to 
Philebus at close of Book vi. and following passage from 
Philebus, 56 D.) 

Socrates. ‘But are not these also (arithmetic and the arts 
of weighing and measuring) distinguishable into two kinds?’ 

Protarchus. ‘What are the two kinds ?’ 

Socrates. ‘In the first place, arithmetic is of two kinds, one 
of which is popular, and the other philosophical.’ 

Pro. ‘How would you distinguish them ?’ 

Soc. ‘There is a wide difference between them, Protarchus. 
Some arithmeticians reckon unequal units, as for example two 
armies, two oxen, two very large things, or two very small 
things. ‘The party who are opposed to them insist that every 
unit in ten thousand must be the same as every other unit.’ 

Pro. ‘Undoubtedly there is, as you say, a great difference 


284 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


among the votaries of the science; and there may reasonably 
be supposed to be two sorts of arithmetic.’ 

See 249. 1, 525 A, which makes it clear that Plato is not 
denying, on the contrary he is maintaining, that the relation 
of parts to whole may be expressed as a ratio. But this, 
the present passage seems’ to mean, is a relation of two 
enumerations, representing different points of view, and the 
unit, as such—the instrument of counting—cannot be held to 
undergo subdivision. If it were really capable of subdivision 
it would be possible to say truly not merely ‘1 foot=12 
inches,’ or ‘1 inch=,}, foot,’ which indicates two different 
enumerations from different points of view, but 1=12, which 
is impossible. That which is counted as 1 in one aspect may 
be counted as 12 in another; but 12 is always twelve times 1, 
and if not, the operation loses its meaning. 

14. ‘Are only capable of being conceived in thought.’ See 
my Logic, i. 154, and Sigwart, sect. 66. Number is made by 
counting, and each step in counting is a judgment which gives 
a place to something that is counted, as a bare unit in a 
numerical whole. In dealing with number as such, as in the 
multiplication table, the nature of these numerical wholes is 
investigated for its own sake. Number is therefore a creation 
first of ideal selection and then of abstraction, and so may be 
said to have a purely intellectual existence. This of course 
does not mean that it is arbitrary or untrue. 

526B_ 19. ‘The pure intelligence,’ ‘ pure truth,’ lit. ‘intelligence or 
reflection itself,’ and ‘ truth itself.’ In proportion as selection 
and construction are forced to operate, mind passes beyond 
sense and into science, or the unified experience which we 
call truth. 

23. ‘Naturally quick at all sciences.’ Plato includes under 
arithmetic something of the theory of number. Those opera- 
tions in which a bank clerk or a ‘calculating boy’ would out- 

, Strip a great astronomer would rank for Plato under ‘popular’ 
arithmetic: see passage from Philebus, cited on 250. I0, 
526 A. No doubt this appeal to educational experience 


BOOK VII. 285 


is well grounded on the whole. The power of seeing through 
intricate combinations, of such a kind that absolute precision 
is required at every step, is a general qualification for the 
pursuit of science. On the other hand, calculation as such 
has a tendency to substitute itself for the analysis of fact. 

31. ‘So much trouble and toil’; the bearing of this is not 
clear to us. Cp., perhaps, 223. 21, 503 Eas suggesting that a 
severe test is mecessary in order to select the natures that 
‘ will not flinch ’ from the ‘ greatest of studies.’ (Cp. ‘ the finest 
characters,’ 35, 526 c below.) 


250. 39, 526 C—252. 22, 527 C. 


Naturally bordering on arithmetic (the abstraction of number) 
ts geometry (plane geometry—the simplest abstraction of space.) 
It has its uses (not only in land-surveying, but) in the noble 
profession of war; yet not these, but its power of presenting to 
the mind a spectacle of truth exempt from inconsistency and 
Jragmentariness, constitutes its educational value. 


Sect. 76 


41. ‘Which borders on arithmetic.’ Nothing is said at 526 C 


this point about the principle of arrangement, but cp. 253. 
13, 528 A, where the correction is evidently intended to bring 
a principle to light. The abstractions of space are a step 
more concrete than that of number. 


251. 2. ‘All that part of it which bears upon strategy.’ D 


Here and in the treatment of arithmetic the purposes of war 
seem to take middle rank between those of common life and 
those of science. But the consideration of practical purposes, 
which impose a limit on science other than the necessities of its 
growth, is here little more than ironical, and the speaker seems 
by a natural touch suddenly to lose patience, 252. 29, 527 D, 
as the interlocutor piously imitates his own indication of the 
practical value of a science. 


15. ‘The tendency of everything that compels the soul,’ E 


etc. The form of the good is the supreme unity of the 
universe—the universe regarded in the light of the Greek 


286 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


conception of good, as a system having a plan or end. To 
see it in this light is made easier in some degree by any kind 
of study which ‘compels the soul to contemplate real existence,’ 
ze. to get beyond the fragmentary and _ self-contradictory 
appearances of the world of appearance par excellence, and 
apprehend the relatively stable and consistent object presented 
by experience as reconciled in the successive phases of 
science. We are often inclined sharply to contrast a scientific 
and a teleological view of the world. But they really imply 
each other, and tend to coincide as each is completed. 
‘ That region,’ 16, is the phase or level of mind which is entered 
upon in reflection or intelligence, and culminates in dialectic 
—the vision of the whole : ‘ most blissful,’ 17, =‘ happiest,’ the 
idea of happiness always indicating for Plato and Aristotle 
a complete and harmonious condition. 

22. ‘Changeful and perishing.’ See note 244. 8, 521 D and 
ref. to Philebus at close of Book vi. Though applying his 
distinction widely and as a matter of principle, he has present 
to his mind the difference between theoretical geometry and 
the art of land-surveying. Plato was the first to chronicle and 
defend (Philebus, Zc.) the evolution of the sciences out of the 
industries, and it is natural that he should labour to drive home 
so important a distinction. (Cp. 31, 527 A below.) 

527A 31. ‘Squaring, producing, and adding.’ Euclid in the follow- 
ing century collected, and no doubt completed, the geometrical 
proofs which appear to have been current in the time of 
Plato and Aristotle. Even in the order which they assume in 
Euclid’s Elements, these proofs are frequently censured as 
being merely artificial and ingenious rather than a natural and 
straightforward presentation of geometrical truth. Plato’s 
comment seems to point to some such criticism. We must 
remember how new was the conception of a great organism 
or hierarchy of science, constituting one of the characteristic 
achievements of the human mind, and suggesting such ideas as 
the reign of law and’ the rationality of the world, if we desire 
rightly to appreciate the heat and emphasis with which, as in 


BOOK VII. 287 


the following sentences, he reiterates his demand for purity 
of scientific purpose. ; 

252. 2. ‘ What eternally exists,’ lit. ‘what always is.’ The 
word ‘eternal’ has peculiar associations in modern thought, 
and it is safer not to use it unless there is special reason to 
introduce these associations. The truths of every science are 
‘always’ true, subject to the assumptions upon which the 
science is based; but it does not follow that they are, as 
they stand, a final or ultimate form of truth, and the very 
position assigned by Plato to the mathematical sciences, with 
his recognition of their peculiar relation to images of sense- 
perception, shows that he does not consider them to be 
ultimate truth. The word ‘eternal’ suggests to a modern mind 
the most complete and least fallible of intellectual possessions. 

6. ‘To raise up what at present we so wrongly keep down,’ 
viz., the eye of the soul. On ‘up’ and ‘down,’ see 254. 22, 
529 A and note. 

15. ‘Where a ready reception of any kind of learning is an 
object.’ Arithmetic and geometry were the only developed 
sciences at that time, and naturally get all the credit due to 
any example of scientific method as an educational influence. 


252. 23, 527 D—254. 11, 528 D. Sect. 77. 


Astronomy is suggested as third in the order of sciences, but ts 
withdrawn in favour of solid geometry, which follows naturally 
as the science of three dimensions on the science of two. But 
this science ts backward because society does not see the import- 
ance of tt; and it is very abstruse, so that the few who do 
pursue it are left to their own caprices, and become perverse. 
Its place in the series, however, illustrates the logical order of 
the sciences. 


29. ‘You amuse me by your evident alarm.’ In the case 527 D 
of arithmetic Socrates had himself suggested the plea of 
utility. In the case of geometry he had accepted it, though 
slightingly, when put forward by Glaucon ; but here he loses 
patience with it altogether. Note that this does not apply to 


288 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


educational utility, which for Plato is not essentially distinct 
from scientific value, both being measured by the degree in 
which the mind is advanced in the power of apprehending 
truth (36 below). 

32. ‘An organ of our souls,’ lit. ‘an instrument of 
mind.’ ‘Organon,’=‘ instrument,’ has not in Greek acquired 
the peculiar meaning which we attach to ‘organ’ as a seat of 
vital or sensitive functions, though some ‘organs’ are called 
‘organa’ by Aristotle. The hand, Aristotle says, is the 
bodily ‘instrument’ par excellence, as intelligence is the 
mental; by these two all external instruments (‘ organa’) are 
used.—De Anima, 432 A, 1. Here the instrument in 
question is of course the power ‘with which we learn,’ 240. 
7 and 30, 518c and E. 

527 E 253. 1. ‘Or else, if you are—you surely’; the emphasis 
seems hardly right in the translation. Surely it is ‘ or whether 
you are carrying on—but yet have no objection’ to any one 
else profiting by it. ’ 

528 A 15. Whereas the correct way is ‘to proceed from two 
dimensions to three.’ The word rendered ‘dimension’ is 
literally ‘increase’ and probably conveys the notion of 
‘power’ (in algebraical sense) rather than of a pure spatial 
dimension. First the square, then the cube, then the solid in 
motion. ‘ Revolution’ refers to the supposed circular orbits 
of the heavenly bodies, not to rotation on an axis. This 
passage seems to show a distinct intention to arrange the 
sciences according to their object-matter in a direction from 
abstract to concrete, so that the more partial knowledge will 
be preparatory to the more complete, and the process must 
tend to a reconstruction of a solid concrete reality by an 
analysis which becomes step by step more penetrating and 
inclusive. The error is contrived so as to emphasise the 
principle which it violated. 

18. ‘Thickness’ or ‘ depth,’ a genuine spatial term. 

23. ‘No state holds them in estimation,’ because not useful 
for land-surveying. This paragraph may allude to some 


BOOK VI. 289 


controversy of the time which is lost to us. We can under- 
stand that there might be some accusation of perverseness 
against the students of a new science, considered abstruse, 
and not of such a nature as to interest the public mind. The 
notion of a state director of studies anticipates Bacon’s con- 
ception in the ew AZ/antis, and has in some degree been 
realised by the methods of joint research to-day. 

254. 1. ‘ Of plane surfaces,’—a true spatial expression. Plato 528 D 
recurs to his order of the sciences to lay the greatest possible 
stress on its principle. 

7. ‘Space of three dimensions,’ literally, ‘of the dimension 
(or ‘power’) of depth.’ There is no general word for space, 
in our modern abstract sense, in the Repudiic or in Greek 
philosophy down to this point. It just appears in Zimaeus 
52B. (Cp. Jowett’s Introduction to Zimaeus, p. 396.) 


254. 12, 528 E—256. 26, 530 Cc. . Sect. 78. 


Astronomy as the science of solids in motion comes next, and 
gives occasion for a criticism of the sense in which the spatial 
metaphors ‘up’ and ‘down’ are to be understood ; which ts 
developed into a suggestion of the true place which should be 
held by an astronomical science, and an anticipation of an 
astronomy whith shall be a mathematical sctence a not a 
record of observation. 


21. ‘To look upwards,’ etc. The introduction of ‘this 529 A 
world’ and ‘the other’ is a. more plausible extension of the 
metaphor in Greek than in English, as the Greek words, 
which by custom had this meaning, are literally ‘from 
hence’ and ‘thither.’ 

40. ‘Real and invisible,’ in the sense of ‘unseen,’ carefully B 
explained through the preceding discussion. ‘ Reason,’ three 
lines above, is the word rendered ‘reflection,’ 248. (noésis), 
and corresponding to the name ‘intelligible,’ by which the 
world of science is designated throughout. 

255. 1. ‘No objects of sense admit of scientific treatment,’ 

T 


290 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


more literally, ‘nothing of this kind is capable of science,’ z.e. 
of forming or entering into science. ‘Objects of sense’ is 
quite naturally supplied by the translator from the previous 
line ; but of course the term ‘ objects’ filled in with the verbal 
adjective ‘sensibles’ makes the thought more remote for the 
English reader. If we could use a literal rendering like 
‘what is sensed can never make a science,’ we should get 
nearer the point. (Cp. 244. 8, 521 D and note.) 

529 B33. ‘ Downwards, not upwards’; the metaphor implies degrees 
of reality or value. It is most unlucky that popular philo- 
sophy should have associated these degrees of value with 
degrees of abstraction. 

D° 11. ‘Since this fretted sky.’ I suggest the following as a 
fair equivalent for this difficult sentence :—‘ These ornaments 
of the heavens, considering that it is the visible world which 
they adorn, we must take to be indeed of the most beautiful 
and perfect nature which such things can attain, but to fall 
far short of the true (system), consisting of courses which 
real swiftness and real slowness, in the true periods (literally, 
‘number’) and in all the true figures (orbits), traverse in 
relation with one another, carrying with them what they 
contain, all of which are matters to be apprehended by 
reasoning and the mathematical intelligence, but not by sight.’ 
It has been urged that with the adjective ‘true,’ where I 
supply ‘system’ in brackets, grammar requires the previous 
substantive ‘ornaments’ to be supplied. (See Mr. Richards 
in Classical Review, viii. 5.) This would at once condemn 
the. intelligible world to. be in some way a repetition of 
the visible world, and therefore the point is important. It 
seems to me that the peculiar order of the sentence, and the 
attraction of the relative pronoun after ‘true (system)’ to 
agree with the word ‘courses,’ which in the Greek follows 
much later, shows that the substantival idea is undergoing 
modification as the sentence develops, and that it is fair to 
understand a more colourless substantive such as ‘system,’ 
instead of simply repeating ‘ornaments,’ Plato speaks of 


. 


BOOK VII. 291 


swiftness and slowness carrying the heavenly bodies; we 
speak as a rule of their moving with a certain velocity, but 
we could also say ‘such a velocity will carry a body from this 
point to that in such a time.’ Every motion, in relation to 
others, may fairly be described as a swiftness or a slowness. 
His point is that there are no doubt true laws by which the 
periods, orbits, accelerations, and retardations of solids in 
motion can be explained, and that it is the function of 
astronomy to ascertain them: cp. Zimaeus, 40 D. 

23. ‘Just as we might employ diagrams.’ This statement, 529 E 
if rightly understood, goes to the very heart of inductive 
logic. Plato is speaking of the relation of a mathematical 
diagram to the law or theorem which it illustrates. We must 
therefore exclude, to begin with, the notion that he treats 
imaginary appearances as a basis of science equally good with 
real ones. Imaginary appearances are affirmed subject to 
explicit reservations; but what he says is, that the appear- 
ances as such do not give the construction, and must be 
transformed into something else before they can give rise to 
it. Begin by noting the point made five lines below, that 
you cannot elicit geometrical truth from diagrams by simple 
measurement. The diagram, of course, is there merely to 
enable you to bear in mind certain relations while you inquire 
into their. general connection ; and mere observation of it, 
though it may suggest connections which prove to be valid, 
cannot exhibit these connections as rooted in the geometrical 
nature of the figures in question. Cp. De Morgan, Budget of 
Paradoxes, p. 52: ‘Are the results of mathematical deduction 
results of observation?’ ‘This implies no disregard of ex- 
perience ; it is simply a question of method within the body 
of experience. Now this example is typical for the rise from 
sense to science in all induction whatever. The appearances 
of sense-perception only operate as suggestions, within which, 
by ideal selection, the elements are found which connect 
themselves with the intelligible system which is being con- 
structed. This is why a repetition of identical examples is 


292 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


valueless for induction. Instances only work by the new 
content they suggest. Aristotle is perfectly clear on this 
point. See Axa/. Post., 87 B, 39 and go A, 24, and the author’s 
Knowledge and Reality, 285, or Logit, ii. 177. See also note 
on 244. 8, 521 D, and quotation from Mill’s Logic. 

530A 41. ‘Such corporeal and visible objects.’ See reference 
in previous note and quotation from Mill. On the term 
‘objects,’ see note on 1 above. The tendency of science is 
more and more to regard ‘things’ as analysable systems, and 
not as inert or inexplicable ‘body.’ The point is to dis- 
tinguish the world as we guess or hope that it might be known, 
from the world as confusedly and obscurely presented, as an 
unintelligible something meeting our sense; and to be sure 
which of the two we are speaking of. What Plato says is 
strictly true of the latter, but not of the former; and it is not 
easy to be certain how far he confused the two, or how far, 
in criticising him, we are transferring to him the blunder 
which is prevalent among ourselves. We seldom realise, what 
he is insisting on throughout, the total difference of the 
objects dealt with by mind in its different phases. 

42. ‘Changeless and exempt from all perturbations.’ This 
of course demands, as 255. 11, 529 D makes clear, not absence 
of motion, or of variation of motion, but absence of contra- 
dictory or unintelligible variation, which ‘is characteristic 
of the world not yet raised into, the scientific sphere ; and it 
also insists on the non-permanence of any sensuous appear- 
ance of the heavens, the permanent element being the system, 
order, or law. Thus if, e.g., a nebular hypothesis of the origin 
of solar systems were established, an immense change in 
the bodily appearance of the world would be assumed, but 
this assumption would actually be founded on the convic- 
tion of an identity subsisting through all the phases of the 
system. 

256. 4, 5. ‘With the help of problems’ ‘we shall let the 
heavenly bodies alone.’ Cp. De Morgan in Budget of Para- 
doxes, p. 55: ‘Charles It, when informed of the state of 


BOOK VII. 293 


navigation, founded a Baconian observatory at Greenwich, to 
observe, observe, observe away at the moon, until her motions 
were known sufficiently well to render her useful in guiding the 
seamen. And no doubt Flamsteed’s observations, twenty or 
thirty of them at least, were of signal use.’ He goes on to speak 
of the importance which the Platonists’ investigations of the 
ellipse had for Kepler’s inferences, and concludes, ‘had it not 
been for Newton, the whole dynasty of Greenwich astrono- 
mers... might have worked away at nightly observation and 
daily reduction without any remarkable result.’ ‘ Leverrier 
and Adams calculating an unknown planet into existence by 
enormous heaps of algebra,’ 2d. p. 53, is a description that 
seems just to fulfil Plato’s anticipations. 

11. ‘The present mode of studying astronomy.’ The full 
antithesis to Plato’s idea would be given by, e.g., Babylonian 
astronomy, thus described by Professor Burnet (Zarly Greek 
Philosophers, p. 21): ‘These (Babylonian) observations are 
of the most minute and careful kind, but they are utterly 
devoid of all scientific character. There is no theory of the 
heavens implied in them; there is nothing but a record of 
events. Nor are these events recorded for any scientific pur- 
pose. In the words of Professor Sayce: ‘‘If a war with Elam 
had followed an eclipse of the sun on a particular day, it was 
assumed that a recurrence of the eclipse on the same day 
would be followed by a recurrence of the war with Elam.”’ 
But Plato must be immediately referring to Greek astronomy, 
which was at least more scientific than this. On the whole, 
however, as in morality and religion, so in science, he breaks 
with primitive superstition, and brings to bear the construc- 
tive analysis of the scientific mind. ‘Astronomy is not a - 
record of observations, but a theory of the motion of bodies’ 
is the contention which he has at heart, and perhaps a little 
overstates. It would be tempting to connect this passage 
either positively or negatively with the work of the astrono- 
mer Eudoxus, said to have been his pupil, but the tradition 
does not seem distinct enough to warrant an inference. 


— 294 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


Sect. 79. 256. 26, 530 D—257. 42, 531 D. 


The motions which give rise to consonance and dissonance are 
to the ear as those of the heavenly bodies (should be ‘ of light’) 
are to the eye, and the science of harmonics or acoustics ts there- 
Jore a sister science to astronomy (should be ‘to optics’). The 
‘scheme of the sciences culminates iu their co-ordination. 


531 A 257. 3. ‘Measure the notes and combinations distinguished 
by the ear.’ Plato seems to censure as inadequate two modes 
of acoustical research ; first, here and in Glaucon’s answer, 
the pure empirics, or musicians, who are content to discuss (we 
may imagine) rival systems of tuning or ‘temperament’ with 
references to the purity of the consonances obtained by them. 

C 23. ‘They investigate the numerical relations.’ The second 
set of inquirers into acoustics would seem to be the Pytha- 
goreans, who were aware of certain ratios in length of the 
vibrating strings corresponding to certain musical intervals, 
but were not, Plato seems to complain, disposed to inquire 
by more penetrating methods what were the properties, 
involved in these numerical ratios, on which the qualities of 
consonance and dissonance depended, ‘what numbers are, 
and what are not, consonant, and for what reason in either 
case.’ It is possible to see a mystical suggestion in these 
words—an idea that numbers have properties, so to speak, in 
themselves. But we must bear in mind that Plato is distinctly 
treating acoustics as a branch of the investigation into 
kinds of motion, and therefore it is fair to credit him with the 
insight that the true reason of consonance and dissonance lay 
somewhere in the nature of the motions indicated by the 
numerical ratios connected with them. The mathematical 
treatment of the analysis of wave-forms (see Helmholtz, Popu- 
lar Lectures, E. T., i. 75) seems to be an example of research 
which would have been after Plato’s own heart. 

28. ‘Faculties more than human.’ It is hardly fair to 
think of all these expressions as if they pointed to a fanci- 
ful type of inquiry. Their meaning is far more naturally 


BOOK VII. 295 


explained by crediting Plato with having in some degree 
anticipated the nature and direction of the advance to be 
made in the future at least by mathematical science. 

31. ‘The beautiful and the good.’ Words like these in con- 
nection with a branch of mathematical physics are apt to 
pass by us as an idle sound, just because Plato uses them so 
audaciously and directly. But we have only to look at our 
literature of popular science or popular theology to see how 
deeply permeated it is with ‘edification’ drawn from the ideas 
of astronomy and mathematical physics. We find, for 
example, that followers of Plato are lectured on the mean and 
base conception which they have formed of ‘matter,’ and on 
their neglect of the higher point of view which sees in any 
rusty nail a sort of system of solar systems whose motions 
form a harmonious totality. (Huxley, Collected Essays, vol. vi. 
284.) Mr. Huxley’s description of his nail is a fair though 
imperfect illustration of Plato’s meaning in taking mathemati- 
cal analysis as an aid to the vision of the yniverse in its unity 
and variety, and consequently to the will and feeling which 
are imbued with the ‘ spirit of law.’ 

36. ‘Their mutual association and relationship.’ The co- 531 D 
ordination of the sciences is by some considered to be the 
whole of philosophy. See Wallace, Prolegomena to the 
Study of Hegels Philosophy, p. 21 ff. and 57 ff. Plato, with 
a certain delight in transcending the expectation of the 
popular mind, represented by Socrates’ hearer, points out 
that great as the task is, it is but the prelude to philosophy 
itself. At the same time it is a necessary prelude, and the 
sciences themselves lose their scientific or educational value 
if their interconnection is not seen. 


257: 43, 531 D—262. 1, 5354. Sect. 80. 


Passing now beyond the ‘prelude’ we arrive at the actual 
hymn, the study of philosophy, whith ts characterised as (a) 
Rational, being contrasted with the finite sciences, as partly 
sensuous, in terms of the ‘ Cave’ allegory ; (b) Concrete, as aiming 


296 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


at a complete and systematic grasp of every matter presented to 
it, and therefore (c) Critical or Categorical, because it necessarily 
attempts to adjust and modify all isolated assumptions so as to 
jit them for a place in the ultimate unity of reality; and (d) 
Moral, or finally, Religious, because the unity thus established 
ts or culminates in the Good which is at once the end of all 
action and ground of all Reality. With the vision of this 
ultimate ground the system of knowledge attains a natural com- 
pletion. Compare with this connection of all reality in the good, 
Laws, 967 E:—‘ Vo man can be a true worshipper of the gods 
who does not know these two principles—that the soul (mind) ts 
the eldest of all things which are born, and is immortal, and 
rules over all bodies; moreover, as I have now said several times, 
he who has not contemplated the mind (intelligence) of nature, 
which ts said to exist in the stars, and gone through the previous 
training, and seen the connection of music with these things, and 
harmonised them all with laws and institutions, is not able to 
give a reason of such things as have a reason. And he who 
ts unable to acquire this in addition to the ordinary virtues of 
a citizen, can hardly be a good ruler of a whole state; but he 
should be the subordinate of other rulers. 


258. 1. ‘The actual hymn.’ The Greek word for hymn also 
means law, and Plato is probably playing on the double 
meaning. 

6. ‘Unable to take a part in the discussion of first prin- 
ciples,’ lit. ‘to give and receive an account.’ 

g. ‘Have we not here the actual hymn.’ In this paragraph 
the study of dialectic is compared with its counterpart in the 
allegory of the den. Better, ‘Have we not here the actual 
hymn, which dialectic performs? This hymn, being itself in 
the intelligible world, finds a parallel in the power of sight, as 
we described it when it makes the effort to look at actual 
animals,’ etc., z.e. in the concrete division of the surface world, 
above that in which shadows and reflections were the objects 
of sight. 


toa 


BOOK. VI. 297 


15. ‘In the same way, whenever,’ restating the process of 
dialectic, to show its parallelism to the simile. 

16. ‘In pursuit of every reality,’ more lit. ‘of the self of 
what each (quality) zs.’ Cp. close of Book v. and notes. 
It is almost the same phrase throughout; the notion is 
that of analysing and unifying the manifold or pheno- 
mena of a group, say all that are called ‘beautiful,’ till by 
criticism and reciprocal adjustment and elimination of the 
accidental they come to be known as a unity or coherent 
body of truth. 

17. ‘Independent of all sensuous information,’ more lit. 
‘without any of the senses.’ Cp. note on 255.1, 529 B. Dia- 
lectic is Rational. Astronomy, it was admitted, used data 
obtained out of the appearances of sense, as geometry used 
diagrams, though neither science dealt with the appearances 
of sense as such. In philosophy, however, neither diagrams 
nor any sensuous details are employed even as illustrations 
or data, the problems being of such a nature and so generalised 
that pictorial ideas will not even seem to deal with them. 
Even in geometry the diagram must be confined to a particular 
exemplification of the proof, and this will often fill the novice’s 
mind with wholly misleading associations, so that the same 
proof with an unfamiliar drawing of the diagram will not be in- 
telligible to him. A difficulty may be felt about the banish- 
ment of sense, owing to the constant presence of images and 
pictorial detail in thought, however abstract. But this detail, 
which is not sensation as such, and the use of which is wholly 
governed by the reference of the idea, so that any part of the 
image may be treated as irrelevant, is a different thing in 
principle from a datum or illustration which is taken ex 
hypothesi as not irrelevant, but as embodying the essence of 
the matter. No sensuous picture can even pretend to be 
adequate to such an object as the general will of a nation, 
the phases of the human intelligence, the conception of the 
Deity. 

‘By an act of the pure intelligence’; better, by ‘sheer 


298 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


reflection,’ or intelligence.’ ‘Pure’ might be taken to mean 
without relation to experience, which is not implied. ‘ Noésis’ 
is the word above translated ‘reflection’ or ‘ intelligence.’ 

18. ‘The real nature of good’ = ‘the self of what good is,’ 
a concrete example filling up the abstract phrase ‘the self of 
what each (quality) is,’ above, translated in the text ‘every 
reality,’ 16. 

20. ‘The last mentioned person,’ 7.e. the person in the 
allegory, 237. 1-18, 516 a ff. 

532 B 25. ‘ The release of the prisoners.’ This paragraph restates 
the portion of the allegory which corresponds to the mathe- 
matical sciences. But this is strictly exhausted in the sen- 
tence from ‘and when there’ down to ‘when compared with 
the sun,’ and it is not easy to see why the two lines and a 
half, ‘ the release of the prisoners’ down to ‘ the light,’ should 
be prefixed to them, as its content belongs to a wholly different 
portion of the allegory, the counterpart, strictly speaking, of the 
terrestrial world. We can only say that, for picturesqueness’ 
sake, Plato has not cared to maintain the strict limits between 
the parts of the original allegory. The whole scientific educa- 
tion is, of course, in a general way an embodiment of the 
whole ‘release and conversion,’ and is spoken of, 243. 38, 
521 C, as in general the instrument of this conversion. It is 
just conceivable that the ‘ arts’ of 259. 2, 532 c include music 
and gymnastic, by which the mind is raised from the lowest 
kind of shadows to a trained perception and feeling of law 
and order. This would preserve the parallelism of allegory 
and meaning. The difficulty is partly that Plato has begun 
not with training in the shadows but with conversion from 
them. Of course the point does not gravely affect his in- 
tention. 

D 259. 16. ‘What is the general character of the faculty of 
dialectic, and into what specific parts it is divided, and, lastly, 
what are its methods?’ ‘ Methods,’ literally, ‘ ways,’ the word 
from which ‘ method’ is derived, ménus a prefix, which indi- 
cates going ‘after’ something. We have lost the idea that 


BOOK VII. 299 


‘method’ = a pursuit or exploration in search of something. 
Note that Plato expressly refuses to set out the nature 
divisions and course or lines of ‘ dialectic,’ and only assigns 
a few isolated characteristics of it. This slightness or abstract- 
ness of description does not go to show that the science de- 
scribed is abstract ; and the whole course of the allegory, as 
also of the classification of the sciences, indicates that Plato 
conceived of it, in position and tendency, as a return, with a 
new completeness and penetration, to the whole of life and 
experience. This view is confirmed by Plato’s refusal to de- 
scribe the science in detail. He knew that it could not exist 
as a systematic science till a material had been organised 
which in his time was only beginning to be observed. 

31. ‘Can alone reveal the truth.’ Jowett’s translation seems 
needed : ‘ alone—and only to one who is master,’ etc. 

37. ‘No other method which attempts systematically.’ 
Dialectic is Concrete: more literally (whole sentence), ‘about 
the self of each (quality), that which each zs, no other inquiry 
attempts by a (definite) course to ascertain in every case.’ 
On the self of each (quality), see Book v. end and notes. 
The meaning is more fully explained, first by contrast and 
then by expansion, in the two following paragraphs. Philo- 
sophy admits no fictions—goes to the self of each matter 
inquired into; and brings the whole to’ bear upon every 
part—is systematic—these two properties being ultimately 
the same. . 

39. ‘All the arts, with a few exceptions.’ The exceptions 
are the scientific element involved in the practical arts, which 
comes to separate existence in the mathematical sciences. 
The three groups might be typified by (1) politics as commonly 
practised, with rhetoric ; (2) the industrial arts ; and (3) medi- 
cine or gymnastic. See 244. 22 ff., 522 a. The fine arts 
would no doubt come under the first head. See note at end 
of Book vi. with reference to Philebus. 


533A 


260. 7. ‘ Dream about real existence.’ ‘ Dream,’ because they B 


make use of sensuous images, and are not thoroughly coherent 


300 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


or complete, but begin in the middle with assumptions which 
have not. been criticised, as dreams begin and end anyhow, 
without attachment or adjustment to a complete order. 

13. ‘Such mere admissions,’ or such a convention or agree- 
ment. It is not easy to say whether the convention is thought 
of as existing with the hearer, or as lying in the internal con- 

- sistency of the intellectual structure described. Both have 
ultimately the same significance: it is because the ‘principles’ 
are only admitted and not demonstrated that the fabric 
remains a mere convention whether with the hearer or with 
itself. The curious point is that the whole itself—true know- 
ledge—might be described as such a convention, only that it 
leaves nothing outside it. It zs on the completeness and con- 
sistency of the ‘Convention,’ and not on its attachment to 
anything better known outside it, that its character as science 
depends. 

533 C 17. ‘It carries back its hypotheses to the very first prin- 
ciple of all.’ Jowett: ‘does away with hypotheses in order to 
make her ground (ze. that of the science of dialectic) secure.’ 
The difference between these two versions depends on a differ- 
ence of reading which cannot be determined by MS. authority, 
turning as it does on the accentuation of a word. Jowett has 
made the best of his reading, which would more naturally be 
rendered ‘does away with hypotheses in order to confirm them,’ 
—an almost intolerable harshness. Yet, comparing 232-3. 
510-11, a meaning could be given to it, viz., that the hypo- 
theses are destroyed as hypotheses, to be incorporated in the 
body of science in a modified form as assured principles. The 
famous Hegelian term ‘aufheben’ (see Wiss. der Logtk, i. 104) 
seems to have an echo of this meaning. But the rendering 
embodied in the text quite satisfies the requirements of the 
passage. Cp. 233. 29, 511 B: ‘ Not as first principles, but as 
genuine hypotheses,’ z.e. strictly as hypotheses and no more. 
To recognise a fiction or assumption for what it is is the 
first step in a criticism which is directed to assigning it, 
with the necessary modifications, its true place in the whole 


BOOK VII. 301 


of reality. Therefore Dialectic is a Critical science, and aims 
at establishing knowledge on a Cafegorical or unconditional 
basis. 

20. ‘Gently draws and raises it upwards.’ The force of dia- 
lectic is really active in science from the beginning (247-8. 
524), when the mind is first confronted with a momeraidiction 
and thereby forced to reflect. 

35- ‘First division science, second understanding,’ etc.: the 533 E 
same classification as at end of Book vi. 

38. ‘Opinion deals with the changing, intelligence with the 534 A 
real’; or, slightly paraphrased, ‘ seeming belongs to what comes 
and goes (literally, becomes), thinking (or ‘ reflection’) to what 
is. See note on 244. 8,521 D. Plato appears desirous to 
insist once more on the relativity of object to subject, from 
which he started at the close of Book v., and on which he has 
been insisting throughout. 

261. 7. ‘Who takes thoughtful account of the essence of E B 
each thing, or, ‘who takes account of what each (quality) 

is, z.e. can tell definitely in what each matter that comes 
before him consists. Plato is leading up to the inference that 
the philosopher must be able to explain when and how ‘the 
good’ is present in existence. 

to. ‘To exercise pure reason’; or better, ‘to have intel- 
ligence of.’ The word is ‘nous,’ which always implies seeing 
a principle in details. 

12. ‘Then shall you not also hold the same language 
concerning the good,’ etc. ; better, perhaps, ‘in the same way, 
then, with the good; he who is not able to distinguish the 
form of the good by analysis (lit., ‘in discussion ’), abstract- 
ing it from all else (‘abstracting’ is here literal, though of 
course the original is devoid of logical associations), and who 
does not, as though in a battle, passing through every proof, 
zealous to apply the tests not of what seems but of what is, 
come out of it all with his principle not overthrown—such an 
one you will affirm neither to know the self of good nor any 
good at all; but if he have caught hold of any image of it, to 


302 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


have caught it by seeming and not by knowing, and that dream- 
ing and drowsing his present life through, before ever awaking 
here, he is gone to Hades to the final sleep.’ Dialectic is, to 
conclude, the apprehension of moral or religious truth ; of the 
good—what everything, including man in society, is good for 
—in all its forms, and ultimately as the ultimate law or reality 
of the universe, apart from the knowledge of which life is 
without connection or significance, an idle procession of 
phantoms. Cp. 242, 26, 520 c and note, and citation from 
Laws in section heading. The precise suggestion of this 
passage appears to be that of a knowledge or ‘ point of view,’ 
which in every perplexity or entanglement, whether practical 
or theoretical, would give a clue to the point from which the 
apparent disorder could be seen as order and significance. 
"534E 37. ‘To use the weapons of the dialectician most 
scientifically’; lit., ‘to ask questions and give answers most 
scientifically.’ The notion of dialectic never breaks loose 
from the original associations of conversation. We may 
explain how they can persist in the notion of developed 
science by thinking of such phrases as ‘framing the right 
question,’ ‘ putting forward an objection,’ ‘ offering an illustra- 
tion,’ ‘finding the true answer.’ The terms which originally 
apply to conversation between different persons continue to 
have meaning with reference to the process of thought as 
such, the advance from point to point of the intelligence as it 
unifies the whole of experience, without reference to the 
differences of individual minds. It is plain that the abstract 
postulates, by which the present section, together with 
510-11, explains the general nature of dialectic, correspond to 
the task attempted by philosophy, in its systematic modern 
developments, presupposing, like dialectic, some co-ordination 
of the natural sciences. (See 257. 36, 531 D.) Modern 
philosophy is a criticism of knowledge and an attempt to 
banish fictions and establish degrees of truth and reality (on 
the conception of degrees of truth and reality, see not only 
the whole system of ideas connected with the allegory of the 


BOOK VII. 303 


Cave, but more especially the criticism of pleasure as the 
satisfaction of desire, 321-7. 583-7); it is further an aspiration 
to see the good, or at least the significant, throughout experi- 
ence in its various concrete forms of nature, morality, beauty, 
and religion, and to explain the inter-relation of the points 
of view involved in them. This is just, in outline, the com- 
bined work of thorough intellectual unification, and thorough 
realisation of a positive tendency and nature in the unity 
revealed, which Plato sketches out for the form of a science as 
yet non-existent, in which knowledge and aspiration were to 
culminate. 


262. 2, 535 A—265. 24, 537 D. Sect. 81. 
Distribution of studies down to the age of thirty. 


262. 7. ‘When we were choosing the magistrates some 535 A 
time ago.’ (See 110. 412.) They were before required to be 
intelligent, but the more strictly philosophical qualifications 
are now demanded in addition. 

263. 10. ‘Accepts involuntary falsehood,’ ze. ignorance. E 
(See 72. 10, 382 A, B.) 

264. 3. ‘To select persons advanced in years.’ (Cp. 112. 536C 
33, 414 A.) The selection was to Jdegin with childhood 
according to the former plan also ; but the change is that the 
future guardians are now to be so far—though not finally— 
selected at an early age, that a distinctive education can be 
provided for them almost from the first; and the distinctive 
education is an afterthought, and supplement to the first 
education. 

24. ‘You must train the children to their studies in a 537A 
playful manner.’ Plato does not so much mean, perhaps, 
that the method of education in regular schools and classes 
should be playful—an idea which has grave defects—but that 
no regular systematic study shall be attempted at all in child- 
hood and boyhood. ‘The whole system of elaborate routine, 
with examinations, in which our boys are entangled from the 


304 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


age of ten or earlier, might have appeared to him a stupend- 
ous mistake, especially as he recognises no practical need 
for an early entrance on practical life. 

537 B_ 38. ‘ Whether they last for two or three years.’ Comparing 
265. 2 just below, it would seem that this two or three years 
ends with the age of twenty. It roughly corresponds, there- 
fore, to the first military service of the young Athenian—a 
sort of ‘volunteer’ or ‘militia’ service at home (see the 
account of ‘Gymnastic,’ 100. 14 ff., 404, and the large part 
played in it by the idea of service in war). Plato prefers for 
his young rulers what to us would seem an idle life up to the 
age of twenty, but a life very much more nearly realised, than 
it is supposed to be, by the system of our great public schools, 
at all events some years ago. The lawlessness which tends 
to be generated by a routine of school work that never is 
genuinely enforced, nor really attracts the mind, would be 
avoided on Plato’s system by not pretending to a routine of 
study at all, but aiming rather at exciting and stimulating the 
desire for exact knowledge by calling attention now and 
again to the rudiments of science, during a training aimed at 
turning out a hardy, healthy lad, with taste and character. Of 
course the importance of the historical past and of the vast 
fabric of science must lay a weight on our youth which did 
not exist for the Greek, not to mention the necessity for an 
early entrance on practical life, which might conceivably be 
in some degree diminished if there was a general desire to 
diminish it. Still it is well to remember what a paradox we 
are embodying in our education, when we confine the regular 
study of the greatest subjects entirely to the period of intel- 
lectual immaturity, and never allow or encourage the full- 
grown intellect of our active classes to apply itself methodically 
to reflection. 

C 265. 4. ‘Must be brought within the compass of a single 
survey, etc. It is hard to say whether ‘between’ is to 
be taken with the words ‘the nature of real existence’ as 
well as with ‘them,’ but probably it is so, as Jowett renders it. 


BOOK VII. 305 


The conception of degrees of reality is involved. The different 
branches of study have different relations to the nature of the 
real as such. 

11. ‘ According as a man can survey,’ etc. The crispness 
of this is lost in the translation ; quite lit., ‘the synoptical 
(man) is dialectical, and the not, not.’ The scientific or 
philosophic mind is that which can hold together the principle 
and all the details, which ‘sees life steadily, and sees it 
whole.’ (Cp. 257. 34, 531 D above.) 

18. ‘ Thirty years old and upwards.’ The two lines above 537 D 
show that war and civic duties are not to be excluded during 
this time of study. Plato is not contemplating a student life 
in the sense of the life of a recluse such as to destroy the 
bodily energies and practical capacities. Socrates took his 
full share in war though not in politics, and the fakir-like 
stoic or cynic was a phenomenon only beginning in Plato’s 
time, though rooted in one side of his views and of Socrates’ 
habits. In the Repudblic, at least, the wholesome wholeness of 
the citizen life is maintained as the basis of philosophy. 


265. 25, 537 D—268. 6, 539 D. Sect. 82. 


Digression on the dangers of dialectic in its negative aspect as 
enlightenment, and on the need of maturity and stability in those 
who study tt. 


29. ‘Insubordination,’ lit. ‘lawlessness, the opposite of E 
the quality of loyalty which the first education was to impart. 

266. 26. ‘Opinions about things just and beautiful’: 538 C 
‘opinions,’ lit. ‘dogmas,’ truths that have been approved or 
accepted by our own minds or by authority. The same word 
is rendered ‘conviction,’ III. 11, 412 £, It is remarkable 
that Plato here fully admits the possibility that the view, in 
the maintenance of which as inculcated by the legislator . 
(see Zc.) civic virtue consists, may be overthrown by criti- 
cism. But if this criticism is only the negative side of the 
deepening grasp with which a mature and steadfast mind lays 

U 


306 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


hold on reality, no harm, he urges, will be done. He does 
not promise that philosophy will confirm, in its given form, 
the orthodoxy of the first education. The comparison of our 
traditional views on, say, religious subjects, with the natural 
authority of our parents, is in every way striking and suggestive. 

538 E40. ‘As much deformity as beauty in what he calls beauty.’ 
Cp. the passage on the relativity of attributes, 195. 479, and 
the treatment of, e¢.g., the view of ‘Cephalus in Book 1. on the 
nature of justice. 

539 A 267. 7. ‘Is not that flattering life,’ especially if the educa- 
tion has been narrow and meagre to begin with, so as to have 
no vitality or expansive power in the good principle. (See 
the transition from the miserly to the profligate or half- 
profligate mind, described 291. 559-60.) All this passage 
comes home to us as if written yesterday. 

12. ‘Abandoned his loyalty.’ The mere education of habit 
and feeling, which generates in him the spirit of law, cannot 
by itself guarantee him against the results of an entire dis- 
solution of his earlier convictions. Plato has in his mind, no 
doubt, the case of Alcibiades, to whose life the very word 
‘lawlessness’ is applied by Thucydides, vi. 15, 28. It would 
be too much to say that he is tacitly censuring Socrates for a 
careless use of dialectic, but undoubtedly he is dealing with a 
problem raised by the accusations made against Socrates. 

22. ‘To forbid their meddling with it while young.’ Cp. 
Aristotle, £¢hics i. 3, 5, ‘a young man is not qualified to 

be a student of politics (moral philosophy),’ 

B 26. ‘Contradiction,’ or eristic disputation. See 159. 24, 
454 A and note, and cp. the more highly charged passage in the 
Philebus to the same effect—(Philebus, 15 D, J.): ‘ Any young 
man, when he first tastes these subtleties, is delighted, and 
fancies that he has found a treasure of wisdom, and in the 
first enthusiasm of his joy he leaves no stone, or rather no 
thought, unturned, now rolling up the meaning into one, and 
kneading them together, now unfolding and dividing them; 
he puzzles himself first and above all, and then he proceeds 


BOOK VII. 307 


to puzzle his neighbours, whether they are older or younger, 
or of his own age—that makes no difference ; neither father 
nor mother does he spare; no human being who has ears is 
safe from him, hardly even his dog, and a barbarian (foreigner) 
would have no chance of escaping him if only an interpreter 
could be found.’ (See also 215. 41, 498 A above.) 

33. ‘Disbelief of their former sentiments.’ Their world 539 C 
has not grown, but been torn up by the roots. 

39. ‘ Discuss,’ lit. ‘ converse,’ z.e. use true dialectic. 

268. 2. ‘Precaution.’ Philosophy is a study for mature D © 
intelligences and steadfast characters. A man of thirty will 
not think it worth while to meddle with the subject simply to 
show off intellectual fireworks. 


268. 7, 539 D—End of Book vu. Sect. 83. 
Completion of the philosophic life, and method of the reform. 


10. ‘Resigning every other pursuit for it.’ This is the 
only absolute divorce of study from practice in Plato’s scheme 
of a complete life. 

24. ‘Fifteen years.’ Their professional or active life has 540 A 
thus extended from seventeen to fifty, being, however, clogged, 
as it were, with examinations, as in some military services to-day, 
from twenty to thirty, when the inferior sciences are being 
mastered and co-ordinated, and having a period of absolute 
retirement from active life inserted from thirty to thirty-five, 
when philosophy, which admits of no rival, is being studied. 
It is worth noticing that some colleges, for example, which 
have a greater freedom of action than is possible in the com- 
mercial and professional world, are in the habit of granting 
their teachers from time to time’a year’s dispensation from 
work to preserve their vitality of mind and body. Otherwise, 
no doubt, the citizen of to-day has but little apparent leisure 
for self-concentration and reflection, except in times of illness, 
which for that reason may almost be welcome, or by accidents 
which interrupt his employment, and are not always so 


308 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


unwelcome as might be thought. And Plato no doubt did not 
anticipate the power of organisation which modern life has 
developed. The command of leisure which is shown by the 
busiest of men is an instance of the extraordinary meeting of 
extremes in modern life. Probably it is rather the pressure 
of trivialities than the pressure of necessary business which 
hinders a far higher development of mature reflection than is 
common even among able and high-minded men in the society 
of to-day. We must assume that throughout Plato’s system 
those who are not selected as the fittest obtain inferior duties 
and positions, much as in actual life. For the whole of 
society an increase and right organisation of leisure is begin- 
ning to be recognised as a question of the first importance. 
540A 30. ‘ Having surveyed the essence of good’; rather, ‘ the 
good itself.” We should bear in mind the Greek conception 
of good as that which anything is good for. Apparently the 
study of dialectic from thirty to thirty-five did not include the 
study of the good as such. For the meaning of this study, 
see 261. 12, 534 B and note, as also the close of Book v1. 
There is a good deal of shrewdness in Plato’s apportionment 
of work to the various periods of life. The ‘good’ is the 
principle of reality, intelligence, and action. Now it is strictly 
true that the world, for each of us, as his intellectual and 
volitional system, undergoes much transformation in his pas- 
sage through life, and that it may presumably, where the 
development is continuous and consistent, arrive at a certain 
settled clearness and final sense of values, when life, while 
still energetic, draws towards the conclusion of its experience. 
It is not, of course, that any man can become infallible for 
others ; but it may be worth considering that he becomes, so 
to speak, infallible for himself—he has acquired the greatest 
completeness and lucidity of which his organism is capable ; 
he knows what aims and tendencies he thinks important, and 
he sees the whole of his world in their light, so that they 
determine what he treats as real and as unreal; and it is not 
likely that any experiences, wholly new in kind, can be 


BOOK VII. 309 


received by his organism so as. to reverse its main lines. 
Such completeness of intellectual and volitional organisation 
must be won by each for himself within the limits of his own 
experience, and cannot be transferred by teaching. This is 
why the time of life is essential, and not accidental, in respect 
to it. Compare with the whole of this passage Browning’s 
Rabbi Ben Ezra, especially the stanza 

‘Enough now if the right 

And good and infinite, 

Be named here, as thou call’st thy hand thine own, 
With knowledge absolute, 


Subject to no dispute 
From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.’ 


36. ‘The hard duties of public life.’ After his constant 540 B 
professional or political service is over he is still to take his 
turn of public duty, directing, we may suppose, the work of. 
younger men who are still in continuous service. The scale 
of ages at this point seems low to us. Our politicians are 
young at fifty. 

269. 14. ‘Capable of realisation in a certain way,’ ze. in as D 
far as the condition of realisation is fulfilled by a grasp of 
reality being brought to bear upon the life of the state. The 
fulfilment is proportional to the degree in which the condition 
is realised, and will also differ from the theory as a concrete 
from an abstract. (See 185-7, 472-3.) Cp. what Goethe 
says in Hermann und Dorothea of the fulfilment of wishes, 
which is no less true of the fulfilment of theories : 

‘ Es hat die Erscheinung fiirwahr nicht 
Jetzt die Gestalt des Wunsches, so wie Ihr ihn etwa geheget ; 


Denn die Wiinsche verhiillen uns selbst das Gewiinschte, die Gaben 
Kommen von oben herab, in ihren eignen Gestalten.’ 


24. ‘ All who are above ten years old.’ Cp. 219. 28, 501 A. E 
It is impossible to say how far these suggestions are serious ; 
but, underrating the importance of the family, Plato is very 
likely to underrate the continuity of social life. There is a 
distant echo of his suggestion in the modern practice of 


310 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


making a fresh start with the children, when the older genera- 
tion is beyond reform. It is, however, a useful comment on 
the idea underlying Plato’s words, to point out that the 
modern practice is much more difficult and less successful 
than might be thought—so deeply is even a bad family life 
bound up with what is good in the members of the family. 

541B 40. ‘What sort of person we shall expect him to be.’ Is 
Plato thinking for the moment of the guardian class only? 
In the following Books he takes no account of the difference 
of classes or characters within each state. Each is, so to 
speak, focussed and idealised in the one corresponding indi- 
vidual, and so we must take it to be here. This is the close 
of the third natural division of the Republic, which began 
either with the opening of Book v., or after the completion of 
the Hellenic state, at marg. p. 471. 


BOOK VIII 
PART IV 
NEGATIVE INSTANCES 


Beginning of Book vi1l.—272, 42, 545 C. 


Method to be pursued in the negative verification of the connec- 
tion between happiness and goodness. This Section introduces 
the fourth natural division of the Republic, consisting of Books 
VIII. and IX., which take up the thread from the close of 
Book IV., and examine the inferior types of life by the same 
method which was there applied to the life of normal or com- 
plete human nature. Bearing in mind the purpose of the 
investigation, we should not attach great importance to the 
question whether the succession of constitutions ts portrayed in 
accordance with history, or whether Plato was in earnest with 
the notion of a cycle of polities, and that going from better to 
worse. Jt was natural, in an arrangement based on psychology, 
to follow the assumed order of merit, or relative completeness, as 
between the psychological kinds or elements by the predominance 
of which, in Plates view, human minds were principally dis- 
tinguished. Such a treatment corresponds to a natural or 
normal classification, or at best to a description of phases in 
plant-life, rather than to a historical inquiry. Not that the 
links of transition are unreal ; on the contrary, they are 
shrewdly observed and deduced. But they omit, except in one 
striking instance, 287. 14, 556 E, the reaction from without 
(see Laws, 708 E), which plays so vast a part in the history of 
actual societies, and it ts not suggested, though it is not denied, 


that the typical connections, which are all that they illustrate, 
311 


Sect. 84. 


312 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


may have different results in different circumstances. No doubt, 
however, the general outline of the cycle ts partly drawn from 
the admitted beginning of Greek polities with monarchy and 
aristocracy, and from the fatal close of the fifth century at 
Athens with the despotism of the Thirty succeeding the democracy. 
It is this later period, and not the despotisms of the seventh and 
sixth centuries, that Plato has chiefly in mind when he speaks of 
the tyrant. That the language of these books of the Republic 
may be fully appreciated, the arguments with Thrasymachus, 
in Book I., and the speeches of Glaucon and Adeimantus in the 
early part of Book I1., should be carefully re-read. 


543A (270. 5. ‘A community of pursuits in war and peace,’ ze. 
between men and women. 

D 271. 5. ‘If your state were right, all the others must be 
wrong.’ Cp. I5I. 37, 445 Cc, ‘one form of virtue, infinite 
varieties of vice.’ At first sight this strikes us as absolutely 
false, like saying that there can only be one beautiful form of 
plants or animals. But in as far as Plato’s state, and the 
others, are merely typical of certain fundamental relations in 
moral and social life, there is a truth in it. To what an 
extent this is the case is plain from the mere fact that Plato 
counts monarchy and aristocracy as one and the same type, 
the number of the rulers being a mere accident, and their 

quality alone essential (see end of Book Iv.), and that many 
actual forms of government are intentionally omitted by him 
as not typical, ze. as not essentially differing from the main 
types which he gives. (See 38, 544 D below.) 
544A 12. ‘Whether—the best is happiest,’ etc. This universal 
connection of excellence and satisfaction is the problem 
throughout. (Cp. 185. 26, 472 C.) 

C 28. ‘Crete and Sparta.’ Both fully discussed in Aristotle’s 
folitics. There is little in Aristotle, except, perhaps, in the 
definitely biological investigation, which is not suggested by 
Plato. 

33. ‘Despotism.’ The polar opposition of the unconsti- 


BOOK VIII. 313 


tutional monarch or ‘despot’ to the constitutional or natural 


monarch, the ‘king,’ is quite in harmony with Greek feeling, 
and is in itself an important rejoinder to the ethical criticisms 
provoked by the use of force in government. Aristotle, 
following a hint in Zaws, 715 B, applies the distinction between 
public and selfish aim in the ruler (see Republic, 16-29. 338- 
348) as a general distinction between ‘normal’ constitutions, 
under which he includes kingship, aristocracy, and polity, in 
which the one, few, or many govern for the general advan- 
tage, and ‘ deviations,’ tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy, in 
which the one, few, or many govern for their own advantage. 
Nothing could be more opposed to the ideas of Plato and 
Aristotle than the contention that democracy is merely ‘a 
form of government.’ See Newman, /xtroduction to Aristotle's 
Folitics, p. 212, for a very full discussion of the classification 
of constitutions by the Greek philosophers. Throughout 
these two Books comparison with Aristotle’s Politics suggests 
itself at every turn, and it seems needless to load the com- 
mentary with remarks which must occur to every one who 
reads the two together. Mr. Newman’s work is an invaluable 
guide for those who desire to make a thorough study of Greek 
ar ideas. 

‘Conspicuously by itself i in kind.’ Plato here tells us 
in a that he is only taking account of differences of prin- 
ciple. (See above, 271. 5, 543 D.) 

272. 1. ‘ Equal in point of number.’ That every constitution 
has its own characteristic laws, which to a Greek meant its 
own type and spirit, is a fact to which Thrasymachus was 
made to draw attention, 17. 10, 338 8, the differences between 
legal systems being in fact the ground of views which regarded 
society as artificial. In justifying the connection between 
- individual and social character, the point was again taken up, 
138. 14, 435 E, into a more concrete notion of the spirit of 


544 D 


societies as the complement and emanation of the individual * 


will, and here the same treatment is repeated. Plato is con- 
vinced that the rule of society over the individual is not 


544 E 


545 B 


Sect, 85. 


314 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


heteronomy but autonomy. (Cp. Wallace, Hegel’s Philosophy 
of Mind, cxxxii.) 

2. ‘A tree or rock’ (Odyssey, xix. 163): an expression used 
in asking a man his name and family: ‘for you are not 
sprung from a tree or rock,’ z.e. you have a human origin. 

11. ‘Who resembles aristocracy,’ including kingship: the 
number of the rulers is not essential (see 271. 5, 543 D, and 
note). 

28. ‘ Moral characteristics,’ ‘ éthé,’ plural of ‘ éthos.’ 

33. ‘ Timocracy.’ ‘Time,’ has the double meaning of 
‘honour,’ and ‘price’ or ‘assessment,’ and this form of 
constitution must not be confounded with that mentioned in 
Aristotle’s Zthics, viii. 10, as Timocracy, viz., a popular con- 
stitution with a moderate property qualification—not the same 
as oligarchy, which is there, as in Plato, a narrow constitu- 
tion determined by a property qualification which excludes 
the greater number. 


272. 43, 545—276. 24, 548 D. 

The unaccountable deterioration of the normal or perfect state 
jirst shows itself in the emergence of inferior natures, tn 
whose hands the level of culture will fall, and ultimately, by 
error of the rulers, base natures will be chosen into their number. 
The result will be a struggle and compromise, leaving the tnter- 
mediate psychical element, the warlike and aggressive temper, in 
predominance, but with a constant tendency to be dragged down 
to lower forms of selfishness. Such a society will present the 
Jeatures of Sparta. 


545 C 273. 3. ‘Originate—in the governing body.’ This is like 


E 


Plato’s faith in the unconquerableness of the city which is 
really ove (120, 422). Perhaps change may be said to have 
such deep-seated causes that it seldom comes without symp- 
toms which extend throughout society. 

14. ‘ Playing with usas children.’ Plato here tells us that his 
explanation is going to be symbolic,"and is not to be taken 
literally. ° 


BOOK VIII. 315 


18. ‘ Everything that has come into being must one day 546A 
perish’: all that has a beginning has an end; the only un- 
changing reality is the whole reality. I do not propose to 
annotate the following numerical puzzle, of which I have no 
new explanation to offer. It seems more important to suggest 
that where Plato speaks of numerical or geometrical relations 
as causes (see on Astronomy and Acoustics in the last Book, 
and much of the Zzmaeus), he seems to be anticipating the 
establishment of uniformities which his knowledge did not 
enable him to construct. Here, then, I take him to indicate 
that unknown causes, whether in nature or in world-history, 
lying beyond the control of the wisest management at a given 
level of knowledge and power in the world, will sometimes 
bring about the deterioration of a people. He does not 
indeed affirm that such causes are in their nature magical and 
unknowable, but implies the contrary. Changes of climate, 
exhaustion of mines, the growth of powerful neighbours under 
new conditions, the discovery of new countries, the silent 
march of economic change or of paralysing formalism in the 
old, and also causes more distinctly biological, relative to the 
presence or absence of crossing with new types, and the main- 
tenance of selection with a definite tendency, which Plato 
perhaps has more especially in mind—al! these and many 
more like them are causes which the statesman either cannot 
recognise till it is too late, or again can hardly hope to control 
if he does recognise them. And thus there will set in periods 
of exhaustion or changes of type. Whether a stock ‘wears 
out’ apart from specific causes hostile to its survival I suppose 
we cannot be said to know. -But even without this conception 
there is ample illustration for Plato’s idea that the course of 
history and natural causation may be too strong for the 
wisest and greatest statesman, and the greatness of a people 
may be lost by causes which are not ‘their own fault’ in the 
common meaning of the term. 

274. 6. ‘They will be unworthy of it.’ The process is re- D 
presented as very gradual, and beginning with an inexplicable 


316 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


change in the quality of the best citizens. Then follows 
neglect of education, and not till this has produced its results 
in the succession of ill-qualified persons to the office of rulers 
can it happen that members of the wholly unfit races are 
appointed to govern. One does not see why the first set of 
inferior rulers should not at once have caused the revolution ; 
but Plato is anxious to emphasise that the primary fault may 
be mere carelessness—negligence in the public education. 

547 B27. ‘In the absence of all poverty,’ ze. being rich in 
spiritual wealth. (Cp. 116. 417, and 243. 521.) 

C 30. ‘To come to an agreement.’ All the states and char- 
acters between kingship and despotism are compromises, in 
unstable equilibrium—in each case a mere transient balance of 
disorganising forces. (Cp. 276. 8, 548 c, 277. 4, 549, 278. 19, 
550, 284. 14, 554, 203. 5, 561, 306. 43, 572.) 

31. ‘Divide and appropriate.’ The first overt act of the 
deteriorating government is to place the governing class in 
the possession of private property, which before was confined 
to the lower ranks, who in the Timocracy are dispossessed. 

275. 1. ‘An inferior tribe,’ lit., ‘ Perioeci,’ the name given 
to the inhabitants of Laconia who formed the class between 
‘Spartiates’ and ‘ Helots.’ The Helots were slaves of Greek 
blood, an exceptional and dangerous state of things. 

6. ‘A kind of mean between.’ (See note on 274. 30.) This 
judgment anticipates the line both of Plato and of Aristotle in 
criticising the Spartan system—a system that seemed to aim 
so high, yet constantly fell into miserable narrowness and 
self-aggrandisement. 

D_ 15. ‘In the respect which the warrior class will pay’: the 
points here insisted on belong to Sparta. The public messes 
or “ syssitia’ were characteristic both of Sparta and of Crete. 

E 22. ‘Inits fear of installing the wise in office.’ This and the 
two following paragraphs thoroughly anticipate Aristotle’s 
criticisms on the Spartan constitution, which were no doubt 
suggested by this passage. (See folitics, ii. 6.) The narrow 
purpose of the state, he says, reacts on the character of the 


BOOK VIII. 317 


citizen and so defeats itself; ‘the city is poor, but the citizens 
avaricious,’ ‘the whole scheme of their laws aims at war, which 
is but a partial excellence.’ The self-indulgence connected 
with the household and the extravagance of the women at 
Sparta are strongly insisted on by Aristotle. It is remarkable 
how Plato here treats as a second-rate excellence the warlike 
capacity for the sake of which his guardians were introduced 
in Book 11. The present paragraph down to ‘character of 
its own’ describes qualities centering in the ‘spirit’; the 
following one portrays tendencies belonging to the appetitive 
element in its aspect of cupidity, against which the mere narrow 
pride of the ‘ spirit,’ devoid of true culture, is no defence. 

32. ‘Covetous,’ lit. ‘appetitive’: the word begins the 
sentence, and stamps the character of the disposition 548A 
described in it. 

38. ‘Walled houses.’ See the description of the Spartan 
house in Pater’s ‘Lacedzemon,’ Plato and Platonism, p. 190, 
and cp. end of Book m1. 

276. 6. ‘Profound philosophical inquiry,’ lit. ‘discussion 
and philosophy’; perhaps ‘criticism and culture’ would give B 
the meaning. They have some tradition of musical taste and 
training ; but it is a mere tradition forming one side of a fierce 
and rough life and a cruel discipline, not the crown and flower 
of a liberal education. Compare speech of Pericles, Thuc. ii. 
35 ff., in its allusions to Sparta, with which Plato’s expressions 
in this passage are fundamentally at one. 

7. ‘Gymnastic above music’ (cp. 107. 410). Gymnastic 
primarily deals with the ‘spirited’ element, music with the 
‘philosophic.’ See the consequence of this preference in 
selfish and quarrelsome ambition, three lines below. 

to. ‘It isa compound.’ See note 274. 27, 547 c. 


276. 24, 548 D—278. 26, 550 E. Sect. 86. 
The ambitious character, in which the ‘ spirited’ part takes 
the lead, arises from a struggle between high-mindedness and 
different forms of selfishness, in a soctety in which high-minded- 


318 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


ness finds it hard to make an impression. Ambition, as the 
higher form of selfishness, thus becomes the ruling motive, the 
mind being guarded against mere greed by some relics of true 
greatness, whith, however, in lapse of time, tend to wear away. 


549 A 35. ‘Will not despise slaves, like the perfectly educated 
man,’ and apparently will be cruel to them just because he 
does not feel himself securely above them. It is implied that 
the educated man will not be harsh to slaves, just because he 
realises the inferiority of their life. The term ‘despising,’ 
therefore, must be interpreted in a peculiar sense, not incom- 
patible with courtesy—the courtesy of the aristocrat to his 
inferiors. Still it must describe an attitude of mind which is 
shocking to modern ideas. 

B. 277. 4. ‘ Will he not always be paying it more respect.’ (See 
note on 274. 30, 547 C.) Plato is bound to depict a sort of 
Rake’s Progress, by the aim and order of his treatment, which 
goes through the psychological elements one by one in a 
definite succession. And the connection here indicated is 
perfectly real; it is quite true that one form of graspingness 
may lead on to another and a lower form, obliterating the 
habit of reflection and the sense of what really makes life 
worth living. But the upward connection is no less real, and 
may be traversed in the opposite direction to that which Plato 
describes. Ambition or pleasure-seeking may hit upon objects 
and experiences which may lead back to a larger scheme of 
life. (Cp. the second part of Aawsz.) 

14. ‘The character of the timocratic young man.’ The 
genuine timocratic man, like the full-blown timocratic state, will 
only come into being after several generations of growing 
imperfection. (See 274. 6, 546 a.) There will therefore be 
politically intermediate phases, and socially intermediate 
generations, which have ceased to be thoroughly aristocratic 
though not yet completely timocratic. This is no negligence 
in Plato’s account, but is of course profoundly just. The 
new elements must have been modifying the old society long 


BOOK VIII. 319 


before they take shape in political change, and thereby in 
turn make possible their own completer manifestation in 
the character of the citizens. 

24. ‘From the time when the son listens to his mother’s 549 C 
complaint.’ This amusing passage clearly exhibits the fact that 
all political change of real importance is, as Carlyle said of the 
French Revolution, a change in the minds of men, and has 
its counterpart within every household in the effect of the 
concrete moral and material conditions of the time. It is 
interesting to note that after all the Greek ladies sometimes 
expressed their opinions, not without result. 

278. 15. ‘Appetitive and spirited element.’ (See note 274. 550 B 
30, 547 C.) He does not give way altogether, but stops short 
of yielding to the worst influences which act upon him, 
though he tends more and more to be infected by them, and 
develops a character which has a certain affinity to that which 
they tend to develop. He becomes a hard, ambitious, and 
more or less selfish man of the world. 


278. 27, 550—288. 18, 552 E. Sect. 87. 


Oligarchy, the political aspect of plutocracy, is the natural 
result of permitting the house and household to exist (for the 
governing class ?) as a means of accumulation and object of ex- 
penditure. Wealth becomes the chief aim of life, and a property 
gualification ts instituted. Such a society ts tll-governed, divided 
against itself, and lacks a due apportionment of functions ; and 
inherent in it are extravagance and pauperism (involving the 
existence of a criminal class), which are at bottom the same 
thing. 

278. 27. ‘The words of Aeschylus,’ adapted from the 55°C 
Seven against Thebes, 451. 

40. ‘A property qualification.’ Plato looks at this form of 
state from a strikingly modern point of view. The constitu- 
tion of Solon, and in some degree the modification of demo- 
cracy introduced towards the end of the Peloponnesian war, 


550 D 


E 


551 B 


320 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


when the Four Hundred were put down, and approved by 
Thucydides (viii. 97), were founded on the idea of the services 
which persons of different degrees of wealth were able to 
render to the state, and were, in intention, classifications 
according to function. But Plato has in mind, perhaps, a 
commercial or plutocratic oligarchy like that of Corinth, and 
consequently views a property qualification as a restriction 
purely in the interests of wealth. 

279. 7. ‘The influx of gold into those private treasuries,’ 
etc. ‘Treasuries,’ see 275. 36, 548 a, and I16. 3, 416 D, 
where the same word as here is rendered ‘storehouse.’ This 
passage again, especially ‘in the persons of their wives,’ is 
much in the tone of Aristotle’s comments on Sparta, although 
we learn from Demosthenes that private extravagance, com- 
bined with meanness in public matters, showed itself in the 
fourth century even under the Athenian democracy. 

22. ‘Such a gulf between wealth and virtue.’ The tone of 
this passage is certainly sombre compared to that of the 
opening scene in which Cephalus appears. 

43. ‘By violence with arms in their hands.’ To an 
Athenian, as to ourselves, this would naturally suggest a 
revolution against a democratic system, such as took place at 
the establishment of the Four Hundred in 411 B.c., or of 
the Thirty in 404 B.c., and constantly throughout Greece 
during the Peloponnesian war. It is difficult to realise, and 
it may almost be doubted whether Plato at the moment 
remembered, that according to the context he is speaking of 
the change from an aristocracy of warriors and landowners to 
a plutocracy. It might be suggested that he is really general- 
ising the origin of oligarchy, and not restricting his account 
to his peculiar cycle of polities. 

280. 2. ‘By the alarm which they have inspired.’ Cer- 
tainly this is strongly suggestive of the incidents preceding 
the establishment of the Four Hundred. Cp. Thucydides 
(viii. 54), ‘and the people at first hearing (the arguments of 
Peisander) were indignant at the proposal of an oligarchy ; 


BOOK VI/I. 321 


but on having it clearly explained to them by Peisander that 
there was no other safety, they were frightened—and gave in.’ 


10. ‘ Elected our pilots on this principle.’ (Cp. 202-3. 488 551 C 


above.) We are apt to be so fixed in the prejudices which 
Plato was combating, that we cannot at all appreciate the 
entire disconnection between the basis of social classification 
as it existed in his mind, and the sort of grounds on which 
the ‘classes’ are contrasted with the ‘masses’ to-day. We 
naturally interpret, for example, the satire of the passage 
above referred to as, on the whole, a satire upon democracy. 
But it is not so. Plato has no shadow of our rooted idea 
which connects wealth, and an appearance of ‘distinction’ 
and exclusiveness, with culture and capacity. His satire is 
directed impartially against every society which selects its 
rulers on any other ground than that of their fitness to rule. 


27. ‘Become two cities.’ (Cp. I2I. 11, 422 E, the same D 


expression.) It is hard to believe that all through Plato is 
not drawing largely from the experience of Athens in the 
fourth century, although technically, of course, that was not 
an oligarchy, but an extreme democracy. 

36. ‘Oligarchs in the actual battle,’ ze. few in the actual 
battle. (Cp. I2I. 20, 423 Aand note.) Here the reference is 
perhaps to Sparta. 

38. ‘Unwilling to pay war-taxes’: so Aristotle of Sparta 
(Pol. ii. 6), ‘they are bad at paying taxes.’ 


281. 2. ‘ Various occupations’: this, of course, is not true 552 A 


of the Spartan aristocracy. Plato’s picture is much general- 
ised, and full of details from very different sources. Plato’s 
uncompromising objection to versatility is perhaps to us the 
most difficult and unreal of all his views. If we could see the 
Athens of his day we should understand better what he was 
condemning. Even in the idealised picture which Thucydides 
draws of the greater Athens of the fifth century, we can see 
- that versatility (eutrapelia) was to a dangerous degree the 
Athenian’s boast. Our own civilisation, though it produces 
occasionally magnificent displays of varied gifts in the same 
x 





\ 


\ 


552 B 


C 


322 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


individual, rests essentially and increasingly on the specialisa- 
tion of functions. Our versatility is chiefly ‘for ornament,’ 
and this Plato himself would permit. (Cp. 90. 17, 396 E, and 
note Pater’s account of Plato’s feeling that s¢vength was the 
one thing needful in the Greece of his day.) 

_g. ‘Allowing one person to sell all his property and another 
to buy it.” It was the duty of the guardians to guard against 
both wealth and poverty, I20. 1, 422 A; but now the ruling 
class themselves are depicted as possessing property and 
desiring to increase it without limit. ‘There were restrictions 
not so much on the sale as on the acquisition of land at 
Athens, which seem to have operated fairly well till the close 
of the fifth century. If there is to be property, and for the 
classes to whom property is permitted, Plato seems inclined 
to think it should be inalienable. 

11. ‘ Without being a recognised portion,’ more lit. ‘ being 
none of the members of the city.’ This is to Plato the essen- 
tial note of pauperism, and he finds it in the unemployed rich 
as in the unemployed poor. Poverty is only the outward and 
visible sign of a pauperism that exists no less in all who are 
not ‘members,’ z.e. organs of society. 

16. ‘Is not prohibited.’ (Cp. 285. 20, 555 ¢ bales The 
attempt to make property inalienable is now generally con- 
demned on the ground that it is thereby kept in the hands of 
those who have lost the capacity to employ it rightly. ‘ Home- 
stead’ laws, and the prohibition of seizing tools for debt, apply 
the principle in a sphere hardly open to such an objection. 

18. ‘To be extravagantly rich.’ This seems to imply, 
what is a fallacy, that no one can become rich except at. the 


, expense of others. 


27. ‘Only a consumer of its resources.’ Here Plato lays 
por what is surely the true doctrine regarding the expendi- 
ture of the idle as such, as against the fallacy that mere 
consumption creates employment. 

‘38. ‘The seaibe ones end in an old age of beggary, the 
stinging ones,’ etc. The class of useless rich, the pauper 


BOOK VIII. 323 


class, and the criminal class, are fundamentally the same, the 

difference between the useless or criminal poor and their 

wealthy counterparts being merely external. For one side of 
the connection, cp. Zconomic Journal, Dec. 1893, p. 601: ‘1° 
should like to suggest to those who are more familiar with 
the wealthy section of the residuum, whether they do not find 

exactly the same characteristics amongst people whom the 

mere accident of birth has separated from their natural sur- 

roundings. There is the same insuperable aversion to steady 

work, the same self-indulgence, the same eager devotion to 

trifles and absorption in the interests of the moment. All that 

they need to complete their likeness to their poorer brethren 

are the dirty homes and squalid surroundings, and if they 

were left for only a week to their own exertions, there can be 

little doubt that these also would appear.—Miss H. Dendy 

on the Industrial Residuum. Plato embodies the underlying 

facts of character chiefly in the elementary case in which the 

idle and extravagant rich man himself becomes a beggar ; 

but the identity of character is no less real when the useless 

rich man never becomes poor, and the useless poor man has 

never been rich. Of course in modern pauperism there are 

other factors, but character remains the chief. 

282. 6. ‘Almost all are beggars except the governors.’ 552 D 
‘ Beggars,’ rather ‘poor’; the word does not imply mendi- 
cancy. We would give a good deal to know what societies 
Plato had in mind when he wrote these words. 

9. ‘Keep down by main force,’ like the miser’s passions. 
(See 284. 3, 554 c and D.) 

12. ‘ Bad education, and bad training, and a bad condition E 
of the commonwealth.’ The connection between bad educa- 
tion and economical evils forces itself on our notice to-day. 
Plato is not thinking of technical education, but of the forma- 
tion of character, which, however, for him, involved training 
to some form of serviceableness. ‘ Condition of the common- 
wealth’; rather, ‘constitution.’ The true social idea is lost, 
and therefore the economic organisation is bad, and in this 


324 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


merely reflects the vulgarity of aim and standard into which 
the social idea has degenerated. (See 279. 26, 551 A.) 


Sect. 88. 282. 19, 552 E—285. 5, 555 A. 


The miserly character ts the result of a selfishness which has 
been terrified out of the path of ambition, and has consequently 
found its aim in accumulation of the mere means of life, the 
objects of what is afterwards defined as ‘necessary’ desire. This 
aim reacts both on the reason, and on the form assumed by the 
‘ spirit’ of self-assertion, and produces a spurious unity in the 
character, which is really self-discordant, in an unstable equtli- 
brium of appetites ; the extravagant passions being held in check 
by caution, as beggars and criminals are by the police in the 
plutocratic city. 


553B 282. 38. ‘The instant the son has seen and felt this.’ It 
might be asked whether this account is compatible with that 
implied on 279. 550, which seems rather to indicate a 
natural progression in selfishness. Plato only asks us to 
imagine that the natural tendency to graspingness, which is 
inherent in ambition, 277. 4, 549 B, is intensified and narrowed 
in the individual by experience of the hazards of a public 
career. The whole description is steeped in the history of 
Athens, and the disenchantment portrayed as following upon 
disaster might well be interpreted of the city as of very 
numerous individuals in it. 

C 283. 2. ‘Appetitive and covetous.’ The identification of these 
elements began with treating the industrial class in society 
as the money-making class or provider of necessaries far 
excellence, 136. 35, 534 D, and was definitely stated in the 
moral analysis of the mind, 147. 10, 442 A. 

6. ‘The rational (calculative) and high-spirited elements.’ 
The mind must change as a whole, and the reasonings and the 
type of self-assertion are necessarily moulded by the nature of 
the dominant purposes. 

26. ‘Necessary appetites anticipates the distinction drawn 


out 289. 37, 558 E. 


BOOK VIII. 325 


30. ‘A sordid man.’ Plato’s connection of avarice and 554A 
appetite is capable of a wider application than the experience 
of his time had suggested. His miser is the ‘thrifty’ man in 
the bad sense, with no conception of life as a whole; he is 
hardly contemplating the audacious speculator or financier, 
generated by modern conditions, in whom the connection of 
avarice and extravagance is not latent but full blown. In 
portraying the oligarchical society he seemed to have in mind 
a greater degree of wasteful consumption than his description 
here would indicate. 

284. 1. ‘Either beggarly or criminal,’ both demanding 
gratification apart from the general welfare of the mental 
polity, the one class without doing any service, the other by B 
doing distinct mischief (=the unlawful desires of Book rx. 
beginning.) 

8. ‘Guardians of orphans,’ ze. where they can act without 
detection or at least without retribution. This passage retorts 
the argument of Gyges’ ring, 42. 360. C 

14. ‘Is holding down by a kind of constrained moderation 
a class of evil appetites.’ (Cp. 31, £, below.) These passages 
should be read in close connection with the account of D 
genuine satisfaction of the complete self, and of the develop- 
ment of moral unity in Book 1x. from 313. 577, to the end of 
the book. If goodness or morality is a harmony of the self, 
may there not be many such harmonies obtained by extirpation 
of the higher elements of man’s nature, and though comprising 
a less range of elements, yet just as good harmonies as the 
fullest? It is the same question that is raised in Book tv. 
by the relation of the inner state of the soul to man’s 
function in society. Plato’s answer is quite plain throughout. 
In a true harmony of the soul, the various impulses become 
elements in what is really a single desire, directed to the 
organised scheme of life which is such as to afford satisfaction 
to man’s whole nature as a system of co-operating forces. In 
fact, therefore, the desires (as every desire is characterised by 
its object) do not remain isolated or exclusive impulses at all, 


554D 


326 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


but are modified and spiritualised throughout by the connec- 
tion which gives them all a work and meaning in subordination 
to the end of life. But the narrower ‘harmonies’ are only 
apparent or external ; they are, as in each of the descending 
phases of character represented in Book vii. (see note, 274. 
30, 547 C), compromises between elements which are not recon- 
ciled, but urge their isolated demands for gratification. Inter- 
nally, therefore, they are always battling with each other, though 
the man in whom they do so may present a fair appearance of 
respectability if caution is stronger in him than passion. This 
relation to a system, and its absence, is what Aristotle indicates 
by pleasures being or not being ‘according to nature.’ £¢hics, 
i. 8, 11: ‘most people’s pleasures conflict, because they are not 
so according to nature, but those who love the beauty (of 
organised life) take pleasure in what is pleasant’ according to 
nature’; where see Stewart’s note. 

26. ‘ Double-minded,’ as the plutocracy was two cities; he 


is inwardly divided against himself, 280. 27, 551 D. 


555A 


Sect. 89. 


32. ‘A soul attuned to concord and harmony,’ more lit. ‘ of 
his mind being at one with itself and framed (to unity).’ 

41. ‘Some few parts of himself.’ A mutilated self as a 
plutocracy is a mutilated society, 280. 36, 551 E. 


285. 6, 555 B—289. 19, 558 ©. 


Democracy arises out of plutocracy owing to the growth of an 
impoverished class, which is multiplied by the blind policy of the 
rulers, who lose sight of political danger in pursuit of their 
private interest. At the same time their loss of manly qualities 
becomes evident to their subjects, who become ready to revolt on 
the slightest external incitement. The establishment of democracy 
involves the abolition of all property qualification, and also, as a 
rule, of election by merit, the offices being assigned (as at Athens, 
with certain important exceptions) by lot. Democracy ts 
essentially the opposite of government by law ; its note is freedom 
in the sense of anarchy, equality in the sense of disproportion, 
and multiplicity in the sense whith excludes unity. This account, 


BOOK VTI. 327 


which clearly ts a savage caricature of the ‘extreme democracy’ 
of the fourth century at Athens, reminds us in some degree of 
Dante's satire on Florence, Purgatorio vi. 127. 


285. 11. ‘Extravagant wealth, which is publicly acknow- 555 B 
ledged’: this rendering misses the point ; more lit. ‘ owing to 
insatiate craving for the good which is the object (of oligarchy), 
namely, that each should become as rich as possible.’ Pluto- 
cracy is overthrown by its devotion to the one-sided view 
of life which it has made its own. Only a complete conception 
will bear pressing home. A one-sided aim, if strenuously 
pursued, must defeat itself. See the same principle applied to 
the good of democracy, 294. 31, 562 Cc. 

27. ‘ Acquire a proper amount of temperance,’ because the D 
love of wealth is at bottom one with the sensual element of 
the mind, the subordination of which to larger purposes is 
essential to ‘ temperance.’ 

286. 5. ‘They wound him by infusing their poisonous E 
money.’ The metaphor of the sting seems for the moment to 
be used in describing the money-maker, placing him on a 
level with the criminal class whom he creates. With Plato 
there could be no question of the good or bad management of 
industrial armies, as with us. He is thinking of a compact 
little society, in which normally all have property (the denial 
of it to the ruling class being an innovation of his own), being 
disintegrated by fraud and usury on the one side, and idleness 
and extravagance on the other. 

10. ‘To extinguish this great evil.’ It is interesting that 556A 
Plato should suggest, with but a slight preference between 
them, two remedies so opposed to each other as the paternally 
despotic measure of rendering property inalienable, and the 
individualistically anarchic policy of refusing to enforce money 
contracts at law. This has been proposed with regard to 
small debts in our own time. . 

287. 14. ‘One party from an oligarchical city.’ This method E 
of interfering in the internal politics of other cities in order 


328 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


to support the party favourable to the principles and influence 
of the city that interfered, was constantly employed in Greece, 
especially by the leading states, in order to maintain their 
supremacy or retain their allies, and was responsible for much 
of the bitterness of internal feuds in the towns. The atomic 
independence of the Greek states really permitted no other 
means of attempting to build up a permanent connection 
between them. The Athenian league or empire, which at first 
fairly attempted to create a common machinery to represent 
a common interest, broke down under the inherent difficulties 
of the task. One city became supreme, and disaster could 
not but follow. 

557A 24. ‘Bylot’; much as offices needing no great special skill — 
may be taken in rotation. Of course the ‘lot’ does secure 
real representation, so to speak, by sample; the ordeal of 
election gives weight to special qualities, which may be un- 
desirable as well as desirable ones. The saying that you 
might get a fair average House of Commons by taking the 
first 670 men you meet in the street illustrates the theory of 
the lot. At Athens it was not employed for offices requiring 
special administrative or financial skill. How far it was in 
truth a typically democratic institution may be questioned. 

B 37. ‘Are they not free.’ Cp. the account of true free- 
dom implied in the judgment on the ‘tyrannical’ soul, 313. 
43, 577 E. 

C 288. 6. ‘Embroidered,’ same word 289. 16, 558 c ‘parti- 
coloured,’ also rendered ‘ variety,’ of rhythm, 94. 38, 399 E, 
and of the emotional temperament as an object of repre- 
sentative art, 349. 22, 604 E. The verb and corresponding 
adjective seem to be used for the work of any decorative art 
which produces a highly complex effect, painting, inlaying, or 
embroidery, also curious metal work (perhaps inlaying), in 
Homer’s account of the shield of Achilles, ZZad, xviii. 590. 
The adjective is used of peacocks, serpents, deer (= dappled). 
It seems strangely to chime in with the character which Plato 
dislikes and in which he finds the root of the weakness of 
Greece in his day. 


BOOK VIII. 329 


19. ‘A bazaar of commonwealths’ (‘pantopdlion’), ‘where 557 D 
they sell every kind ’—a universal provider’s. How, in Plato’s 
view, could there be any features of a good polity in democracy? 
Cp. 293. 24, 561 D, where the democratic man has his inter- 
vals of aspiration and self-denial. The chaos and conflict of 
elements is the point on which Plato is insisting. In the 
Athens of his time there were the incorruptible laconic Phocion, 
the patriot orator Demosthenes, the clique of corrupt poli- 
ticians, the idle self-indulgent rich, the pauperised and 
self-indulgent poor. I do not say that Demosthenes and 
Phocion were known men at the date when the Republic was 
written, but their respective careers, taken with the other 
circumstances of the age, well illustrate the conflicting ten- 
dencies which Plato is depicting. 

25. ‘Not obliged to hold office,’ etc. Cp. Aristotle’s Politics, E 
iv. 4, where the note of the extreme democracy is, as here, 
the reign of caprice (technically of special ‘decrees’ or 
‘privileges,’) and not of law. Democracy for Aristotle is 
therefore not a true polity at all, and the real organised and 
legal system which makes for the good of the whole and not 
simply of the most numerous class, he would call by a different 
name, that of ‘ polity,’ par excellence, or ‘ constitutional govern- 
ment.’ It must be remembered that in the little Greek 
state there were not the vast restraining forces which exist 
to-day in the deep-rooted traditions of legislative, executive, 
and judicial institutions, of the church, the professions and 
established industries, and the universities. The sovereign 
assembly was at once legislative and executive ; it was led by 
no responsible ministry ; it was both administration and par- 
liament, and differed but little from the judicial body. The 
temptation besetting such an assembly or the closely analogous 
jury-courts when passion ran high or necessity seemed urgent 
can well be imagined. Considering all the circumstances, it is 
fair to conclude with Grote that the Athenians were an exceed- 
ingly law-abiding people. Compare with Butcher’s Demos- 
thenes, ch. i., the opposite view strikingly expounded by Holm, 
Griech. Gesch. iii. ¢. 13. 


558A 


C 


Sect. 90. 


330 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


39. ‘Who have been condemned to death or exile.’ The 
discussion in the Cvifo, 44-5 B and c, and 53 B, about the 
possibility of Socrates’ escape, and its probable consequences 
to his friends, may perhaps be taken as illustrating the limits 
of connivance of the authorities at Athens, when there were 
influential persons interested on behalf of a certain prisoner. 

289. 18. ‘Whether they are equal or not,’ suggesting the 
idea of proportion as the true kind of equality in a social 
whole. All depends of course on the attribute which is taken 
as the basis of the proportion, and on the matters to which it 
is applied. Plato seems to imply that ‘ freedom,’ ze. mere free 
birth, is the standard chosen by the extreme democracy ; this 
admits of no degrees, except that slaves and perhaps aliens 
are excluded by it. But the question still arises in what 
respects the equality is alleged to obtain. If, for instance, 
equal treatment obtains as between the representative of law 
as such and the person who resists him, society is destroyed. 
Plato seems to be pointing to this, but he very probably does 
not distinguish it from other kinds of equality, which to us 
would appear desirable. (Cp., however, 293. 21, 561 C.) 


289. 20, 558 C—204. 7, 561 E. 

The genesis of the democratic man; or false liberal (to whom 
perhaps Aristotle's ‘incontinent’ corresponds, and his ‘ profligate’ 
to the tyrant), has to be explained by making explicit the dis- 
tinction between ‘necessary’ and ‘ superfluous’ desires, implied in 
the compromise on which the miserly character rested. The false 
liberal or incontinent character ts constituted by a further 
compromise, by which the ‘superfluous’ desires obtain an equal 
place and estimation in the moral system with the ‘necessary’ or 
thrifty and respectable desires. The secret of the transition is, 
that these latter had, as we saw in the mtser, no power really to 
modify and transform the affections and impulses into the service 
of a true and complete purpose, but merely held them down by 
force, which a change of circumstances must necessarily overcome. 
The incontinent character, then, ts still a compromise, by which a 


BOOK VIII. ~ 331 


weary rotation of appetites and aspirations takes the place of an 
ordered system. It does not achieve the extreme degree of unity 
of which the bad self may be ideally capadble. 


289. 26. ‘Under his father’s eyes,’ etc. Cp. 291. 8, 559 D, 
he has had a narrow and sordid education, which gives him no 
power to resist the taste of pleasure. 

28. ‘Those pleasures.’ Plato constantly uses pleasure as all 
but synonymous with desire or the object of desire. This 
implies the want of a psychological distinction between the 
object of desire and the pleasure attending the satisfaction of 
desire. He is often in fact speaking of the former when in 
set terms he seems to refer to the latter. ' 

33- ‘Necessary and unnecessary appetites.’ The whole sig- 
nificance of society lies in the character of the wants which it 
enables or ought to enable us to satisfy (see 53. 40, 369 B 
above and reff.). This further distinction between the desires 
is needed to maintain the correspondence between types of 
society and types of character. 

39. ‘Our nature cannot help feeling’: those desires are 
necessary which we cannot get rid of, and which are advanta- 
geous to us. He is speaking, according to his psychology, 
within the limit of the appetitive division of the soul; hence 
the person governed by the necessary desires is the miser. In 
our wide use of the term ‘desire’ the person so governed might 
be the good man ; but the aims of desire as trained by reason 
and self-respect do not count for Plato as objects of ‘appetite.’ 
The miser is the man who has made the basis of life its sole 
purpose. 

290. 5. ‘ Never does us any good,’ etc... What desires come 
under this head, as superfluous or even noxious, must of 
course in some degree depend on the standard of life. Plato 


558 D 


559A 


illustrates his standard below, in food, e¢.g., assuming the © 


necessity of meat, but excluding what he thinks luxuries. 
32. ‘ Expensive,’ whereas the others contribute to ‘money- 
making’ or the production of wealth, the industrious class as 


c 


332 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


such being ‘chrematistic.’ This is meant to be an economical 
as well as a moral distinction, the distinction between pro- 
ductive and unproductive expenditure. The word ‘expensive’ 
here is formed from the substantive rendered ‘consumer,’ 
281. 26, 552 B. 

40. ‘‘ Drone” as one burdened with those expensive 
pleasures and desires’: cp. /.c. in previous note. The ‘drone’ 
is economically an unproductive consumer, because morally 
burdened with useless or harmful desires. The miser is a 
consumer of necessaries only, 283. 554 A, and is a producer ; 
but it does not really follow that the nature of what he pro- 
duces is advantageous to society. It may be determined by 
the expenditure of the ‘drone.’ In any case the miser is 
injurious, though commonly approved of (Z¢.), because his 
purpose is after all appetitive, though within a narrow class of 
appetites. This really involves a distinction between luxury, 
which is drone-like, and refinement, which is not within 
scope of the miser’s life, but belongs only to the educated 
man, who is the opposite of the drone and miser alike. 

559D_ 2gt. 8. ‘Inignorance and parsimony.’ (Cp. 289. 26, 558 A.) 
The root of his weakness is that he has never known the real 
human interests. 

11. ‘Varied,’ the same word as ‘embroidered,’ 288. 6, 
557 C, where see note. 

560A 26. ‘A genuine struggle of parties’: the Greek words are 
‘stasis’ and ‘anti-stasis.’ ‘Stasis’ is a term of terrible import 
in Greek history, being as it were the technical phrase for the 
civil feuds by which most Greek cities were torn, frequently 
embittered, as is here described, by external reinforcement of 
one side or the other. ‘The classical portrayal of a stasis is in 
‘Thucydides’ account of the ‘Corcyraean seditions’ (Zhwe. iii. 
70-84), which will be again referred to below. The veiled 
hostility of elements in the miserly nature has blazed up in a 
frightful war of appetites under the stress of temptation. 
B 292. 2. ‘ Beautiful studies’; better, as Jowett, ‘ pursuits,’ or 
even habits ; ‘ theories,’ better ‘ principles.’ This is the danger 


BOOK VII. 333 


of an empty mind. (Cp. ‘ When the unclean spirit hath gone 
out ofa man,’ etc.) 

35- ‘ Describing insolence as good breeding.’ Cp. 29. 26 ff., 561 A 
348 B, on the altering of the value of words, with this and the 
preceding paragraph ; and note the famous passage in Thucy- , 
dides on the Corcyraean seditions, iii 82: ‘And they 
transposed in their estimation the accustomed values of words 
as descriptive of actions. Insane audacity was counted as 
chivalrous courage, and prudent deliberation as plausible 
cowardice ; temperance seemed an excuse for weakness, and 
the exercise of intelligence passed for mere inaction.’ The 
whole narrative should be read with care in Jowett’s 
translation. 

37- ‘Is not this pretty much the way.’ The risk of reaction 
which attaches to a narrow and sordid education is familiar 
enough to-day. 

293. 8. ‘Make no distinction between his pleasures,’ more B 
lit. ‘bring all his pleasures to a sort of equality.’ (Cp. 289. 
18, 558 c.) Equality was the watch-word of democracy. 
The compromise here is not in accepting a mean betwen two 
sets of passions, as in the timocratic and oligarchic man, but 
in forming a scheme of ‘large’ or ‘liberal’ life, which includes 
them all in a mechanical rotation, without genuine unity. 

21. ‘All appetites are alike, and ought to be equally re-C 
spected.’ The terms ‘alike’ and ‘equal’ have a political 
ring. They are the actual words by which Aristotle describes 
the relation of citizens in the true commonwealth, see note at 
end of Book 1v. above. But he knew (4c.) that to secure this, 
even imperfectly, would involve limiting the membership of 
the state, and that likeness of the parts, in a rigid or mechani- 
cal sense, destroys the conception of an organism. Plato’s 
picture of the middle-aged voluptuary gravely maintaining that 
all his desires and aspirations ought in fairness to have their 
turn is a profoundly witty caricature of the false liberal, 
and too well describes what is often understood by a ‘liberal’ 
or ‘unprejudiced ’ attitude. 


561 E 


Sect. 91. 


334 COMPANION TO PLATO’S REPUBLIC 


26. ‘And presently putting himself under training.’ The 
clause before this has dropped out in the translation, lit. ‘and 
again water-drinking and emaciating himself,’ ze. taking up a 
teetotal craze, and fasting. 

38. ‘A man whose motto is Liberty and Equality,’ more lit., 
‘an “equal laws” sort of man.’ To be a place where ‘ equal 
laws’ prevailed was the great boast of Athens, e.g. in the 
drinking song in honour of the tyrannicides: ‘I will carry 
my sword in a bough of myrtle as did Harmodius and Aristo- 
geiton, when they slew the tyrant, and made Athens a city 
with equal laws.’  Plato’s description of the ‘liberal’ city and 
character rests of course on taking the equality as that of 
atoms in an aggregate, and not of members in a living body. 
It expresses an evil to which all ‘liberal’ sentiment and policy 
is liable, and which is often intermingled in the most subtle 
degrees with honest effort to realise and obey the true organic 
necessity or general will. 

41. Variety of his nature,’ same word as ‘ varied,’ 291. 11, 
559 D. (See note and reff.) 

294. 1. ‘Very many exemplars,’ see 288. 19, 557 D and 
note. 


294. 8, 526 A—2QQ. 12, 565 D. 

The characteristics of democracy which favour the transition 
to despotism. As excessive wealth-worship destroyed oligarchy, so 
excessive liberty-worship destroys democracy, and by the same 
means, v1%., the dispossessed class, not now regarded merely as 
beggars and criminals, but including the political adventurer and 
party-leader. _ For the three classes of the democracy have only a 
distant resemblance to the three of aristocracy; the reasonable 
or royal class having degenerated into the more respectable rich, 
the ‘spirited’ or executive class into the needy and adventurous 
politicians and thetr followers (the lion has become a tiger- 
monkey, ch. 331. 38, 590 C), and the industrious class alone 
remaining relatively true to its discharge of function, but even it 
being demoralised by the leadership of the adventurous. All 


BOOK VIII. 335 


three classes strictly correspond to elements of the appetitive 
kind ; but the reason and the spirited element are inherent in 
man, and must be taken as having coalesced, in a stunted and 
distorted form, with the respectable desires and the active impulses. 
The despot then arises in the person of a champion of the 
commons, whom they nourish as their protector when the rich 
are forced to make reprisals for the maltreatment to which the 
adventurers subject them, For the alleged oppression of the rich 
at Athens, cp. Butchers Demosthenes, ch. i. ‘ Did Plato think, 
Mr. Newman asks, ‘that Athens would end with a tyranny?’ 
The account here suggested would not at all apply to the 
oligarchy of the Thirty, from which, however, some details of the 
nature of despotism were probably borrowed by Plato. 


27. ‘Its insatiable craving for the object which it defines to 562 B 
be supremely good.’ (Cp. 285. 11, 555 B and note.) Plato 
throughout this passage describes under the naive metaphor of 
quantity as ‘too much liberty,’ what is really not an advance 
in the direction of liberty at all, but rather, as he depicts it, 
points to a dissolution of society. The reaction of public 
anarchy on the temper of the very brute creation is a 
humorous exaggeration of the principle that the éthos of the 
commonwealth is the éthos of all who belong to it. 

295. 30. ‘ The young copy their elders’ ; rather, ‘ behave as 563 A 
if sad were elders.’ 

2. ‘Relations subsisting between men and women.’ The B 
sane seems to indicate not what this might mean to-day, 
but merely that the due subordination of woman to man was 
not observed. There even seems a malicious humour in the 
juxtaposition of women and the inferior animals. How is 
this tone reconcilable with the contention of Book v. as to the 
equality of the sexes? Plato is here caricaturing an existing 
state of society, and would be quite content, it might be 
suggested, to admit the existence of an evil within an evil: 
first, that the normal and possible life for women under 
existing conditions was of a low type, and secondly, that by 


336 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


mere degeneracy from this type it was made not better, but 
worse. Nothing is harder at times than to distinguish the 
rebellion which points upwards from that which points 
downwards, especially as both may be united in the same 
person. 

563 C 2096. 7. ‘The hound is like the mistress,’ not, as Jowett, as 
good as the mistress, but infected with the same anarchy. 

8. ‘Horses and asses.’ The regulation of traffic is in some 

degree a real test of social order. 

D 20. ‘Whether statute or customary, lit. ‘written or 
unwritten.’ Contrast Thucydides (ii. 37) giving the ideal of 
Periclean Athens: ‘though in our private intercourse we are 
thus uncritical, yet in matters of public importance there is a 
fear that prevents us from transgressing, by respect for those 
who may be our rulers, and for the laws, and more particularly 
for those which exist to protect the injured, and those which 
being unwritten have attached to them the sanction of social 
shame.’ Cp. also Sophocles, Anéig., 449 ff. and O. 7. 863 ff. 
See, on the other side, chapter 1. in Butcher’s Demosthenes, 
but also Holm, Zc. 

E 31. ‘Todo anything in excess seldom fails to provoke a 
violent reaction.’ The idea of excess practically involves the 
idea of reaction, if it is assumed that the proportions by which 
the excess is judged express the true nature of an actual 
system. But in order to make this principle of value, it would 
be necessary to keep it in view in determining what constitutes 
excess. I do not suppose that there is any direct causal 
connection between the heat of summer and the cold of 
winter; 7z.e. these ‘excesses’ are judged of merely by our 
convenience, and have no causal influence on each other. 
But social disorganisation must meet with a check, if society 
has in it any recuperative force, and is not unlikely to meet 
with a violent check, especially if the social whole has almost 
lost the capacity for tranquil growth. The latter, however, 
is the only remedy for disintegration, and Plato seems to 
exaggerate the necessity for marked oscillations of tendency, 


BOOK VIII. 337 


though probably in all history ey would in some degree be 
traceable. 

297. 10. ‘Stinging and stingless drones.’ (Cp. 281. 36, 564 B 
552.) They first came into existence in the plutocratic state 
as paupers and criminals; but in the ‘democratic’ or dis- 
organised society they obtain influence as political adventurers, 
see D 33-5 below. ‘The general principles of policy (at 
Athens in fourth century) were determined, not by the council, 
but by the regular speakers of the assembly, forming as a rule 
a small group of ten or twenty men, who led the debates, framed 
measures, and were the true politicians of Athens.’— Butcher, 
Demosthenes, p.8. Apparently they at times had at command 
a sort of political c/agwe in the assembly (see Butcher, pp. 9 
and 10) ; but on the whole question cp, Holm, Griech. Gesch. 
vol. iii. p. 216, who does not accept the picture of Plato and 
Demosthenes with at all the same degree of reliance as Prof. 
Butcher, utterly denying the existence of general demoralisa- 
tion, and deducing the strange and contradictory action of the _ 
assembly from the peculiarities of its power and position 
(without any responsible executive government) referred to 
above, 288. 25, 557 E. 

298. 2. ‘Most orderly by nature.’ Thus the whole triple £E 
structure in the democratic state consists of persons in whose 
souls the appetitive ‘ kind’ is supreme. 

18. ‘ Unless it receives a share of the honey.’ This doubt- 56; A 
less refers to the system of allowances, either in payment for 
public services, or in order to make possible participation in 
public enjoyments, which, as practised at Athens, was due in 
part to the initiative of Pericles. The issue of entrance- 
money to the theatre to those who claimed it was due to 
Pericles himself; the payment for acting as jurors was con- 
nected with his policy ; the payment for taking part in the 
public assembly (to which this passage seems more especially 
to refer) is not ascribed to Pericles, nor is it clear at what date 
it began. The most serious complaints are made, e.g., by 
Demosthenes, of abuses with respect to the festival fund ~ 

Y 


338 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


which developed out of the theatre-fee, and it is probable that 
Plato is not restricting his reference very precisely to any one 
species of payment. The following paragraph seems to imply 
something more than such payments, and may have referred 
to the alleged confiscation of the property of wealthy men, 
under false pretences, by the jury courts (see Butcher, /.c.) ; but 
complaints of this kind are’ so readily made and listened to 
that it would not be safe to yield them complete credence 
without more detailed knowledge than we possess. Cp. Holm, 
Z.c., for the opposite view to that of Prof. Butcher. It would 


_ be difficult for any historian to determine what is the actual 


Sect. 92. 


position of the rich in England to-day from merely studying 
the special pleadings of popular writers or speakers. 

26. ‘Now these despoiled persons.’ Compare the story of 
Socrates’ advice to Crito to keep an advocate to protect him 
from the ‘sycophants,’ or informers, Xen. AZemor. ii. 9 ; and, 
apparently an echo of the story, Plato’s Crifo, 45 8. It is a 
moot point. whether the oligarchical troubles of the close of 
the fifth century at Athens were in any degree attributable to 
self-defence on the part of the rich, but it is not at all 
improbable that Plato thought of them as being so. The 
despotism of the Thirty, however, in no sense sprang out of 
democratic championship, as described. on the following 
page. ‘That of Dionysius the elder sprang out of a pretended 
democratic championship. 


299. 12, 565 D—Close of Book. 


An ideal picture of Despotism, not historical as a whole, but 
with features drawn from various historical instances, largely, 
it would seem, from Dionysius of Syracuse. What Plato 
chiefly insists on ts the reversal of tendency in the tyrannical 
government as compared with the true form of government, the 
selection exercised by the ruler being unnatural, and his position 
JSorcing him more and more to rely on the worse elements of 
society, and on elements not admitted by a Greek to belong to 
soctety at all (aliens and slaves). This corresponds for him, no 


BOOK VIIr. 339 


doubt, to the supremacy, in the mind, of desires which ought not 
even to exist in a normal character. Among the worse 
elements of society he places the tragedians, whose works, 
belonging to the level of ‘images, are the natural counterpart 
and ally of the lower passions (as is further explained in 
Book X.). 


299. 21. ‘Metamorphosed into a wolf’: some legend 565 E 
of lycanthropy, a widely-spread superstition. See article 
‘Lycanthropy’ in Zueycl. Britannica. 

24. ‘The commons’ champion.’ The most genuine case of a 
‘tyrant’ arising out of a champion of the poorest class was 
that of Peisistratus at Athens. But the remaining incidents 
alluded to in this paragraph appear to belong to the career of 
Dionysius the elder, at Syracuse. (See Grote, ch. lxxxi.) It 
must be remembered that Plato’s letters, which Grote holds to 
be genuine, are by others for the most part taken to be spurious. 
The story of the generals being stoned in letter vuil., which 
Grote disbelieves, is much more like the attempt of a forger 
to support and explain this passage of the Republic by help of 
a blundering tradition, than a mistake of memory on the part 
of such a writer as Plato. 

31. ‘Cancelling debts ahd re-distributing the land.’ See 
Grote, ch. lvii., note (near beginning of chapter). Dionysius 
seized land for his soldiers. Grote points out that the annual 
oath of the Athenian jurors had a clause protesting against re- 
division of the land or extinction of debts. But, taken in con- 
junction with this place and Aristotle’s Politics, v. 5, this hardly 
perhaps sustains Grote’s contention that re-division of land as 
a revolutionary measure cannot with good grounds be ascribed 
to Greek democracy. But it is true, as he says, that we 
have no account of an equal partition of all lands by any 
such democracy. 

40. ‘Banished and afterwards restored.’ The story of Pei- 566 A 
sistratus is fully told in Herodotus, and would be well known 


to Athenians. 


340 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


566 B 300. 7. ‘ Asking the commons for a body-guard,’ Peisistratus 

‘ and Dionysius, 

C 17. ‘Oracle given to Croesus’ (Hdt. i. 55). Note that this 
occurs within a few chapters of the account of Peisistratus 
and his body-guard, 74. 59. Plato and Aristotle were both of 
them acquainted with Herodotus’ history. The fate of 
Polemarchus would be in Plato’s mind. (See note 2, 20, 
328 B.) 

D 38. ‘A smile and a greeting.’ The necessary exasperation 
of a Greek Tyranny as it progresses, however well-intentioned 
its founder may be, is illustrated by the history of the 
Peisistratid despotism. (See Hadt., Z¢., and Thucyd. vi. 54.) 
Xenophon’s Hero, in his ‘ lesser writings,’ is well worth reading 
as a companion piece to this. It is needless to illustrate 
every detail of Plato’s picture, which is not intended to 
possess historical precision. The accounts in any good 
history of the Peisistratid and Gelonian dynasties of earlier 
times, including Xenophon’s A7evo, and of the more recent 
careers of the Thirty at Athens, and of Dionysius the elder at 
Syracuse, will show the sources of Plato’s description. 

567 E 302. 20. ‘Taking their slaves from. the citizens, emanci- 
pating them, and enrolling them in his own body-guard.’ 
Slaves were normally of non-Greek race, so this is what 
enlisting a guard of negroes would be in the United States 
to-day. To a Greek it would seem a natural parallel to the 
emancipation and supremacy of lusts, which ought not even to 
exist within the spiritual polity. (See Book 1x. beginning.) 

568A 38. ‘ Tyrants are wise by converse with the wise.’ Compare 
Book 1., @.g., I3. 21, 336 A, where a principle quoted from 
Simonides, the poet, is maliciously ascribed to some great 
despot. Xenophon represents Simonides as Hiero’s friend. 
See, too, 46-7. 363-4, where the poets rank with the popular 
theologians and vulgar moralists, and Book x., which justifies 
the position that poetry, like art in general, is the counterpart 
of the lowest cognitive and emotional level. It therefore 
necessarily flourishes in a form of society in which passion 


BOOK VIII. 341 


reigns. Cp. for Sophocles’ sympathy with despotism the 
great speech of Oedifus King, 380. The Prometheus of 
Aeschylus treats Zeus as a tyrant, but not as enviable. 

303. 13. ‘ By tyrants chiefly—and to a smaller extent by 568 C 
democracy.’ . Sparta, for example, possessed a theatre, but 
Attic tragedy would demand a flexibility of mind, and an 
interest in casuistical puzzles wholly abhorrent to the spirit of 
the Spartan constitution, and the Spartan theatre was not 
used for tragedy. (See Pater, Plato and Platonism, p. 204.) 
Athenian democracy was certainly the hearth and home of 
tragedy, while in oligarchies or aristocracies lyric poetry was 
more essentially at home. No doubt tyrants would have 
tragedies represented at their courts, but no dynasty gave rise 
to original poets like the great men of Athens. For good and 
evil, Plato’s assertion (note the Dantesque metaphor which 
closes the paragraph) is true on the whole. 

39. ‘The son ought to maintain the father.’ We must E 
remember that maintenance of government by taxation was 
not the normal method in Greece. The city had its property, 
like a college or city company, out of which its public duties 
were supposed to be discharged. Plato’s aristocrats had 
been maintained, we might suppose, on a modest portion set 
aside as constituting the public share, or furnished out of it. 
But this, like all normal relations, is reversed by the tyranny, 
which, instead of benefiting the citizens by economy and success 
in dealing with the public property, turns upon them and 
demands to be supported by sacrifices of their private 
property. Thus the oligarchical condition returns, only that _ 
now the adventurers are impoverishing the ‘respectable’ 
citizen instead of the latter the former. 

304. 16. ‘Has taken away his . . . weapons’: a character- 569 B 
istic of despotism, e¢.g., in the case of the Peisistratids and 
Dionysius. (Cp. also the relation of imperial Athens to the 
subject allies.) 

21. ‘The frying-pan of the service of free men,’ etc., more 
lit. ‘from the smoke of the service of free men into the fire of 


342 COMPANION TO PLATO’S REPUBLIC 


the mastery of slaves.’ See the explanation of slavery, 332. 9, 
590 D. In tyranny ‘this is turned upside down’ (Xenophon’s 
fiero). Instead of the divine intelligence reigning, just that 
reigns which, if the system is to be workable, and so even for 
its own sake, must be ruled. Thus the polity is incapable of 
freedom, 313. 42, 577 E. 


BOOK IX 


Book Ix. init.—306. 29, 572 B. 


To aid tn tracing the psychological transition from the average 
sensual man to the ideal voluptuary (or from the incontinent to the 
profligate man), a further class of desires is singled out, within 
the extravagant or superfluous desires, as vicious or unlawful 
per se. This element is. conceived of as belonging to man’s 
inherent nature, though capable of being suppressed. Tts exist- 
ence even in apparently well-formed characters ts shown by 


‘the cursed thoughts that nature 
Gives way to in repose.’ 


305. 16. ‘To form an original part.’ The translators seem 
to have taken the Greek word as = ‘ to be born with.’ Perhaps 
it does not mean more than ‘to arise in.’ Cp. the image 
of the composite creature at the close of this Book, which 
implies the existence of ‘ wild’ desires in the soul at starting, 
but by the extreme plasticity which it ascribes to the appeti- 
tive nature partially recognises the truth, that no kind of 
natural impulse is er se good or bad. The rendering adopted 
here makes a difference in our estimate of Plato’s view on 
this point, though no doubt in some degree he yields to the 
commonplace tendency to infer from the conflicts of the 
formed moral being that there are, so to speak, original 
bundles of ‘ good’ desires, and again of ‘ bad’ desires, just as 
modern popular ethics treats of egoistic and altruistic impulses. 


But in truth the desire for this or that object is made good 
343 


Sect. 93. 


571 B 


Sect, 94. 


. 344 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


or bad by its place in the self as a whole. ‘I do not know 
any one inborn propensity which may not be moralised into 
good or turned into bad.’—Bradley, Ethical Studies, p. 249. 

306. 2. ‘Whenever a man’s personal habit is healthful.’ 
This is the passage ‘which, for a certain touch of later 
mysticism in it, we might call Plato’s evening prayer.’—Pater, 
Plato and Platonism, 124. 


306. 30, 572 C—313. 15, 577 B. 

Genests and character of ‘tyrannical’ man—the ideal volup- 
tuary whose soul is entirely dominated by the craving for 
satisfaction of a single desire, of a kind that ought not to 
exist tn a healthy soul. Though a single passion is sovereign, 
it brings others in its train as consequences of itself. The 
‘tyrannical’ soul then is one which has lost the capacity of 
adjustment, and can recognise no system without, because it has 
abandoned all system within. Examples of it, in private life, 
are the slave of passion, and the man who ts possessed by an 
impossible craving under the influence of drink or of mental 
derangement. Their mind is ‘tyrannical’ in the double sense 
that it is incapable alike of resisting its craving within, and of 
understanding that there are forces which will resist the fulfil- 
ment of it without. If, however, external circumstances give way 
to such a character, then what he before could be only in dreams 
or delusions he will be able to realise in actual life. Such a 
person is the ‘tyrannical man, who ts also a ‘tyrant, in whom 
the lowest depth of unreality—the dream-world of the Cave— 
has uncontrolled existence to the greatest possible degree as a fact 
in life. 


572 D 43. ‘He was drawn in two directions.’ (See 293. 2, 561 A.) 


307. 2. ‘As he imagined.’ Plato hardly intended to pro- 
nounce the ‘democratic’ life ‘neither liberal nor unlawful,’ 
but, ‘as he imagined,’ does not grammatically qualify the 
following words. See Jowett, ‘not of vulgar and slavish passion, 
but of what he deemed moderate indulgence in various 


BOOK IX. ; 345 


pleasures.’ As his ‘moderation’ (reasonableness) only existed 
in his own opinion, it is implied that the ‘neither illiberal nor 
unlawful’ character of his life existed chiefly in his own 
esteem ; he secured liberty, he thought, without abandoning 
law. (Cp. 293. 36, 561 ©.) The fact that he had sucha 
judgment at all, that he cared at all what he did, is set down, 
comparatively speaking, to his credit. 

13. ‘Into perfect freedom,’ which can hardly be represented 572 E 
even to himself as being compatible with law, as the demo- 
cratic man conceived /zs measure of freedom to be. 

15. ‘These intermediate appetites’: which? The democratic 
man gave preference to no class of appetites in particular. 
According to the distinction of last Section they should be 
perhaps those extravagant appetites which are not vicious 
per sé. 

19. ‘To champion.’ The almost technical term used of 
the democratic leader who becomes a tyrant. (See 299. 6, 
565 D.) 

23. ‘The passion entertained by such men.’ Passion is 573 
here ‘eros,’ of course defined by the pronoun ‘of such men.’ 
See below, 38, ‘love,’ which represents the same Greek 
word. Though we quite admit that ‘love’ may be a sin or 
a misfortune, we should probably prefer to use some other 
word for a passion so viciously tyrannous as that here de- 
picted, and including, it would appear, any form of sensuous 
desire. ‘The Greeks were accustomed to regard the love god 
as terrible, and Plato’s psychology hardly furnished the dis- 
tinction between normal desire and reflective lust (see Ethical 
Studies, p. 243), so that the wide use of the word ‘love’ was 
more natural for him than for us. 

38. ‘Why love has of old been called a tyrant.’ Cp. the B 
chorus of Soph. Azfig. 781, ‘ Love invincible ever,’ containing 
the lines— 


‘Who bringest madness wherever thou art, 
And turnest to sin the just of heart.’ 


308. 7. ‘Wine, or love, or insanity.’ (Cp. almost the same C 


346 COMPANION TO PLATO’S REPUBLIC 


juxtaposition, 90. 8, 396 D.) Bearing in mind that the true 
philosopher is for Plato the true lover, we see how completely 
in substance he held the moral value of a passion to depend 
on its relation to the harmony of the moral organism, a relation 
which, of course, transforms the passion itself. 

573 E 26. ‘Schemes for raising money, and consequent loss of 
property.’ The connection of sensuality and greed, which was 
partly disguised in the miserly character, now reveals itself in 
frightful forms. 

574 B 309. 18. ‘His very own indispensable mother,’ ‘ indispen- 
sable,’ lit., ‘necessary.’ ‘The use of this term is here inde- 
scribably significant and pathetic. First, the word indicates 
kinship; a man’s relations, or what we call his ‘belongings,’ 
are to a Greek his ‘necessaries,’ and in this meaning there is 
a suggestion of the sanctity attaching to the social framework, 
the roots of life. Then, and especially in the context of Plato’s 
argument, it indicates ‘necessary’ as opposed to ‘the super- 
fluous’ or to ‘luxury,’ and the pathos of this is deepened by 
the contrast of the beautiful friend and the no longer beautiful 
parent. 

D 37. ‘Just opinions which he held from childhood.’ (See 
266. 26, 538 c.) There is a point at which the study of 
dialectic apparently shares a feature with the rake’s progress, 
and at this point there is a real risk for the student which 
‘demands great precaution.’ 

310. 1. ‘Only in the dreams of sleep.’ Note this with 
reference to the interpretation of 311. 35, 576 B. 

575 B 26. ‘Theft, burglary, cutting purses.’ The argument has 
the allegations of Book 1. in view, and accepts the position 
there taken up by Thrasymachus, that ‘the cut-purse tribe’ is 
simply the tyrant character as seen in private station. (See 
24. 16, 344 B, and 29. 34, 348 D.) 

D 40. ‘Mightiest and hugest tyrant.’ This might be inter- 
preted so as to have some truth, but perhaps it was hardly 
meant to be historically criticised. It might be true that the 
leader’s mind may have a more intense quality and more 


BOOK IX. 347 


extensive range of selfish ambition or greed than the minds of 
his followers, but it can hardly be true that he is more wholly 
swallowed up in appetitive craving. This would be fatal to 
capacity, and there is always some capacity in the leaders of 
men. Plato is desirous to treat the most prominent example 
as the most typical ; but the fact is not always so. 

311. 3. ‘Will chastise his fatherland.’ External circum- 
cumstances in some cases will fool him to the top of his bent, 
so that the tyrannical character may display itself on the 
largest scene. ° 

33. ‘ He is.one whose ideal and waking state.’ The Greek 576 B 
is very elliptical, and perhaps it would be allowable to render 
it ‘one who is in waking reality what we described to take 
place in dreams.’ (See 310. 1 ff., 574 D, and 314. 40, 578 c.) 
His misfortune is that circumstances indulge him. 

312. 7. ‘Proved to be most vicious.’ This seems to be a C 
conclusion at first sight from the character of the individual as 
depicted just above. Then Plato returns to the comparison 
of societies and individuals. 

26. ‘Creep into every part of it and look about.’ Plato is D 
pretending to carry out his method very strictly, and thus in 
speaking of the society he neglects what he has learnt about 
the tyrant as individual, and scrutinises the city as a whole, 
this being the standard by which (Book tv. zwzz.) happiness 
in a society is always to be measured. He almost seems to 
admit that if you look at the tyrant from outside as a single 
part of society, and not as himself a complex organism, you 
might think him to be happy. 

34. ‘Penetrate into a man’s character.’ When we come to 577 A 
judge of the individuals, then we are to scrutinise their char- 
acters as complex wholes, with regard to the happiness or 
satisfaction which they, as systematic organisms, obtain in 
life. (Cp. 313. 43, 577 E-) 

313. 4. ‘His theatrical garb,’ more lit., ‘his tragic array.’ B 
Again a feeling of the kinship between the shows of tyranny 
and those of tragedy. 


Sect. 95. 


348 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


313. 16, 577 E—3I7. 30, 580 Cc. 


This is the first of three remarkable arguments which sum up 
the comparison of the just or reasonable life with the immoral or 
unreasonable life, taking the two as exhibited in the whole pre- 
vious discussion. All three of them deal in different forms with 
the relation of part to whole, i.e. with the impossibility that a 
satisfaction adequate to the nature of a human or moral self 
should be obtained in the shape of an object of any partial desire, 
unadjusted to the ‘natural’ system which is represented by the 
reason. In the present Section the comparison of state and in- 
dividual ts retained, but not in the two later. Here it is applied, 
Jirstly, to point out the impossibility of true freedom or satisfac- 
tion in the soul of the ideal voluptuary ; and, secondly, to lay 
stress on the spiritual desolation to which such a soul ts reduced 
by being called upon to reign, and consequently withdrawn from 
the ordinary supports and constraints which regulate private life. 


577 E 313. 42. ‘The soul also, which is the seat of a tyranny.’ 


The stress is on regarding it as a whole, just as with a city in 
which nearly all are slaves, though some prominent persons 
may think themselves free. As a whole, the voluptuary’s soul 
is not free, because it has not any formed purpose capable of 
satisfying it as a whole. So whatever it does, it has always a 
craving for something in conflict therewith. ~It may be as well - 
to point out, in case this portrait should strike the reader as 
overcharged and unreal, compared with the comfortably and 
thoughtlessly selfish lives which we see, that these could mostly 
be classed as compromises under one of the foregoing types, 
and that by making this no longer a compromise, but the very 
rule of iniquity, Plato indicates that it is not a portrait of an 
actual permanent life, but an attempt to depict the bad self 
in a degree of purity in which it could not maintain actual 
existence. But the results depicted no doubt are realised in - 
various degrees, and especially in crises at which a distracted 
nature awakes to the full consciousness of its distraction. Note 


BOOK JX. 349 


that the opposite of moral freedom is for Plato not necessity ~ 
but slavery. 

8. ‘ Poverty-stricken and craving.’ This is worked out on 578 A 
more psychological ground in the third argument. (See 324. 14, 
585 4, and cp.close of Book 111. for the notion of spiritual riches.) 

39. ‘The man who being tyrannical is prevented from living ¢ 
a private life.’ The rhetoric of this passage is a reply to that 
of Thrasymachus, 24. 6, 344 A. ‘Try ‘the man who, being of 
tyrannical mind, lives no private life, but is unfortunate, and by 
some circumstance has given to him the opening to become a 
tyrant.’ For the nature of the ‘tyrannical’ soul, which should 
really be called by some more passive term, ¢.g. ‘the tyrannised 
soul,’ see 308. 8, 573 above. When he becomes a despot’ 
society ceases to exercise its controlling force on him, and he 
is like a lunatic who has escaped from treatment. Absolutely 
uncontrolled egoism passes into insanity. There is a sug- 
gestive study of the insanity of despots in Freytag’s novel, 
Die verlorene Handschrife. . 

315. 12. ‘ By considering the individual case’: an interesting D 
but rather shocking side-light on slavery in Greece. Plato 
does not attempt to suggest that the slaves acquiesced in the 
arrangement. 

316. 3. In a similar prison,’ ze. surrounded by powers—the 579 B 
other Greek states—hostile to tyranny, 

17, ‘The only citizen that is precluded.’ This point is 
urged in Xenophon’s Hero. 

21. ‘Diseased and incontinent body.’ His passions and 
impulses are like the slaves of the proprietor or the subjects of 
the tyrant; and when he becomes despot he is put in a 
position where the normal assistance afforded by society to the 
normal organisation of its members wholly fails him, and 
he has to rule others, who are all the time, as individuals, 
infecting his rebellious passions by their own, though he is 
unable to rule himself even were he alone, For the normal 
reinforcement furnished by society to the individual moral 


organism, cp. 53. 40, 369 B, and 332, 8, 590 D. 


350 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


580A 317, 2. ‘In virtue of his power, becoming more and 


Sect. 96. 


more’; the tendency of the despot to be forced from bad 


‘to worse by his false position, which actually reverses the 


normal direction of social constraint, and makes goodness a 
hostile force, was historically displayed in the Peisistratid 
dynasty, and in the fate of the thirty oligarchs at Athens. 


317. 30, 580 D—3al. 30, 583 A. 

This argument (strikingly parallel to Mill's plea for the 
difference of quality in pleasures, Utilitarianism, p. 12 ff.) és, 
like the following one, strictly Hedonistic in form. It makes no 
direct appeal to the ‘happiness’ of a whole as its harmony or 
working system, but starts from the conception of three kinds of 
pleasure, correlative to three kinds of desire, which correspond to 
the three psychological elements of the soul. Only the mention 
of three principles, or forms of self-rule, suggests at starting 
the comparison of lives as a whole. Formally, the judgment is 
to be passed on the pleasures of greed, the pleasures of ambition, 
and the pleasures of the search for truth. The search for 
truth ts not the same thing as the intelligently unified life of a 
moral being, and the statement ts at first therefore somewhat 
off the track. In assuming, however, that each pleasure may 
be represented by the life of a man who, by the hypothesis, prefers 
the life he lives, the starting-point ts somewhat rectified, and it 
becomes clear that the comparison is after all between types of 
life, though still in respect of their pleasantness. The lover of 
wisdom, it is urged, has experience of all three species of 
pleasure, while the man of ambition, and of greed, respectively, 
lack the experience of the grades above them. And the lover 
of wisdom stands alone in possessing the organ of judgment. 
His preference, therefore, is final, both on the ground of 
experience and on that of capacity. In this circuitous way tt ts 
made clear that the life of the ‘lover of wisdom’ includes the 
lives of the other two, while theirs does not include his, and 
therefore the comparison ts by implication not one of part 
against part, but one of whole against part. We should not 


BOOK IX. 351 


venture to pronounce in favour of a life of mere intellectual 
self-indulgence, either as against a life of active ambition, or 
as against a life of commercial or industrial acquisitiveness, 
whether on moral or on Hedonistic grounds. Jt is only in 
as far as the intelligent life implies a more adequate object 
Jor the whole man, a larger and more harmonious being, 
that it claims ethical priority. Plato's argument, like Mills, 
suggests, but does not arrive at, this conclusion. 

317. 42. ‘Three appetites, and governing principles,’ or 580 D 
perhaps ‘ modes of self-government.’ ‘ Appetite,’ or ‘desire,’ 
used in reference to intellectual objects. (Cp. 2. 37, 328 D.) 
Strictly, we have here appetites outside the appetitive part, 
and governing principles outside the reasoning part, which 
alone can hold principles. This would suffice to show that 
we are dealing with formed types of life, in each of which a// 
the elements are represented with the modification by which 
those types are arrived at. A long process has been gone 
through, for example, before the love-impulse, originally 
sensuous, and belonging to the appetitive species, has been 
disciplined and elevated (see 330. 588) so as to become a 
hunger and thirst, 199. 25, 485 E, for knowledge. The 
‘ philosophical part’ itself is animal in its primary form, and 
the distinction of it from the appetitive part is hardly at first 
a pure psychological distinction. 

318. 2. ‘The organ whereby a man learns.’ If this is taken 
as involving an element of desire for knowledge—its own 
‘ appetite ’—it is of course a great deal more than the abstract 
intelligence. 

319. 18. ‘The lover of wisdom regards all the other 581 D 
pleasures.’ For Plato’s conception of the passion for truth 

‘and its effects on the whole man, see 199, 25, 485 E. Plato 
does not here or in the following argument, though he does 
in the Pilebus, 21 B, adhere to the modern conception of 
pleasure as a mere abstraction, the degree of agreeable 
feeling regarded as an end to which all else isa means. In 
the light of this conception his assertion about the pleasantness 


352 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


of study could hardly be established, nor, if it were established, 
would it have ethical value. But he practically treats pleasure 
as a term under which all objects of desire may be ranked, 
though it includes states which are not taken as objects of 
desire ; and therefore when speaking of superior pleasures he 
really means more desirable purposes. The proof that the 
works of the intelligence are the more desirable is substantially 
to be drawn from the lessons of the whole dialogue, as to the 

_ place and function of the intelligence in life. The passion for 
truth, as we understand it, is only a part of this function, but 
we may better appreciate what it meant for Plato if we take 
it to include the passion for thoroughness and reality in all 
thought and conduct. 

581 E 23. ‘If not necessary, he would feel no desire for them’ ; 
rather, ‘he would not want them.’ Here ‘necessary ’=‘ indis- 
pensable’ with a suggestion of ‘subordinate’ or mere sine gua 
non. The higher life involves the lower, but the lower does 
not involve the higher; and to live for what is ‘necessary’ is 
to make an end of the means. Yet the subsequent argument 
urges that the inferior parts obtain their appropriate plea- 
sure only when the reason guides, and this is by implication 
their most satisfying and perhaps even their pleasantest 
pleasure. ; 

582A 29. ‘In reference merely to their position in the scale of 
pleasure’; this is the formal point of the argument, but it 
cannot be established in strictness, at least on such grounds as 
those here adduced. It is a fatal objection, on Hedonistic 
principles, that by the hypothesis the ‘judge’ has not a pure 
and undistracted experience of the lower life. 

D 320. 42. ‘Reasoning is, in an especial degree, the organ of 
the lover of wisdom.’ ‘This is perhaps a good argument to 
prove that the man of culture is pre-eminently competent to 
appraise the value of different ideals of life, but it is not a 
good argument to prove that he is a good judge of degrees of 
agreeable feeling in lives fundamenally different from his own. 

583 A 321. 25. ‘Then the pleasure of the lover of gain is to be 


BOOK IX. 353 


placed last.’ The more vicious side of appetitive satisfaction is 
not insisted on, as it is in the more psychological treatment of 
the subsequent argument. The purpose has been rather to 
take the verdict of a critic who sees the whole of life, on 
the prominent types of character in a fairly normal form. 


321. 30, 583 A—327. 39, 587 B. Sect. 97. 

The argument falls into two parts, besides an application of 
its conclusion to the ‘ spirited’ element. The first part rests on 
the distinction between relative or negative and absolute or 
positive pleasures, treating the former as illusory, and tllustrat- 
ing the illusion involved in them by a distance traversed in 
space, of which the terminus ts misjudged, though the starting- 
point and direction are known. Those whose idea of pleasure 
is drawn from the cessation of pain or of a painful craving, as 
in the satisfaction of desire, are mistaking the point of indiffer- 
ence for the region of positive pleasure, which lies beyond it, and 
to which they have never attained. Their ‘pleasure’ is there- 
fore a delusion. 

Then with 324. 27, 585 A a parallel discussion ts entered on, 
which treats ‘pleasures’ (now clearly=satisfactions or objects 
of desire) from the point of view of degrees of reality. The in- 
complete or complete relation to the whole self which in the first 
part appeared as mere relativity or negativity and their oppo- 
sites, now appears as want of trueness, or want of kinship with 
reality, and their opposites. Therefore the ‘pleasures’ of the 
votaries of sensuous enjoyment have not the character of ‘ true- 
ness’ or ‘reality’—they break down, like a bad theory, when 
new situations and experiences present themselves. 

Finally these conclusions are applied to the ambitious as well 
as to the sensuous nature. And this application suggests the infer- 
ence that if in any degree a ‘true pleasure’ can be shared in by 
the two lower elements of mind, it must be that attendant upon 
those impulses in each which are guided by the intelligence, 
and in such a satisfaction these selected impulses may be said 
to find their proper and highest pleasure. That ts to say, 

Zz 


354 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


objects of desire which are a disastrous failure when we attempt 
to fill our lives with them, may yet add greatly to the zest of life 
of they receive their spirit from our deeper purposes and merely 
tinge our moods with their own freshness. In so far as this is 
not the case, the whole frame of mind ts distorted, and all 
members of it are wrenched away from their true and normal 

_ pleasures. The worst instance of this ts in the supremacy of the 
profligate impulses, and the profligate or tyrannical mind is 
therefore furthest removed from real satisfaction, such as to be 
organically suited to the structure of the soul. 


583 B . 34. ‘Unreal and ungenuine,’ ‘unreal’=‘not having the 
quality of trueness’ (see 230. 23, 508 E and note); ‘un- 
genuine ’—‘ not pure,’ z.e. not unmixed with pain. 

‘Slight as the rude outline of a picture,’ lit. ‘drawn in 
(light and) shade.’ Cp. 346. 12, 602 c, from which context it 
seems likely that deceptive painting to represent stonework is 
meant, like that on the ceiling of Milan Cathedral. The point 
would be then that the pleasure pretended to be solid, but was 
not. ath 

C 322.5. ‘There is a point midway between the two at which 
the mind reposes from both.’ The assumption of neutral or 
indifferent feeling. (See Sully, Human Mind, ii. 5, and cp. on 
the whole subject, and especially on the illusions possible 
with regard to pleasure, Bradley in Mind, xiii. 2 ff.) Plato’s 
suggestion is that states normally indifferent can become 
pleasant by mere contrast. 

12. ‘Nothing is pleasanter than health,’ etc. Health had 
always been a neutral state, but by contrast has become 
pleasant. - 

D_ 24. ‘This relief does become positively pleasant and de- 
lightful.’ ‘Positively’ is an insertion here and in the last 
sentence, but Plato means it; literally, ‘pleasant and accept- 
able.’ The second word tones down the first, as if to smooth 
the transition from a neutral to a positive state. Plato’s 
observations are true as far as they go, and in fact the 


BOOK IX. 355 


purely negative character of pleasure is maintained, e.g., by 
Schopenhauer. It is true that a state of indifference—if there 
is such a state—or even a state of pain, may be turned into a 
pleasurable state by mere contrast with the memory of pain or 
of worse pain. But it does not follow from this that pleasure 
is purely ‘ relative’ or ‘negative’ and pain the only ‘ positive.’ 
Suggestion or judgment that we are better off than we 
were may actually modify our feeling. People constantly 
feel better if you can make them believe they feel. better 
(Bradley, /.c.). In these cases there is first an illusion of 
judgment, which is quite possible with regard to a complex 
state of ourselves, and then a positive change produced by 
this illusion, Thus it would not be a just criticism to meet 
Plato or modern pessimists with the simple answer, ‘we 
cannot mistake our own feelings,’ for it is plain that in com- 
plex cases we can. But on the other hand, while admitting 
the possibility of illusion, it is not necessary to admit the infer- 
ence that pleasure as such is illusory. Supposing, e.g., that 
pleasure attends all sensation as such, there will always be a 
supply of positively pleasurable elements, but the question 
will be how far these are attended to. Here estimated con- 
trast and suggestion may have any amount of modifying 
effect. It is most important to notice that Plato does not 
hold a// pleasure to be negative, but, on the contrary, classes 
all ¢vue pleasure as positive, 

26. ‘The repose from pleasure will be painful.’ This, it 
would seem (1) can only apply to the higher life, where 583 E 
positive or true pleasure (joy) has been enjoyed, for none 
other is above the point of repose or indifference ; and if so, 
it suggests that the pains which may intervene between true 
pleasures are unreal, just as are the pleasures which intervene 
between painful sensuous cravings ; or (2) is the repose here 
mentioned a merely relative repose, not the point of indiffer- 
ence on the pleasure-pain scale, but an element of contrast by 
which the cessation of illusory pleasure (fe/¢ as if positive 
‘joy’) intensifies the misery of the subsequent (actual) pain? 


356 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


There is something that suggests this in Philebus 42 A: 
‘the pleasures appear to be greater and more vehement 
when placed side by side with the pains, and the pains 
when placed side by side with the pleasures.’ (Cp. 323. 4, 
584 A, and following note.) 

28. The repose—must be now the one and now the other.’ 
If we apply to this saying the idea of a scale of pain and 
pleasure with a point of indifference between, introduced on 
the following page, it makes the second interpretation suggested 
in the previous note impossible. The pain caused by absence 
of a pleasure of the lower kind (which pleasure is by the 
hypothesis illusory, and zs nothing but the central state of 
mere repose) cannot itself de the central state of mere repose, 
but must be a descent de/ow repose, viz., must be real pain, 324. 
18,585 4. But if we are thus forced back on the first inter- 
pretation in the previous note, then the contradiction, that the 
central state of repose or point of indifference is now taken for 
pleasure and now for pain, does not exist within the appetitive 
life. In the appetitive life repose would always be pleasure, 
in the philosophic life it would always be pain, though there 
might be real pain as well. Of course, if we conceive the two 
lives as not strictly separated, as in reality they are not, the 
difficulty disappears. 

35. Emotions,’ lit. ‘motions.’ (Cp. Sidgwick, History of 
Ethics, p. 50 and note, with reference to Zimaeus 64-5.) 
‘Sensation is there explained as the result of molecular 
movement in parts of the body whose minute particles are 
in a mobile condition. If the movement is a violent and 
sudden disturbance of the part affected out of its natural state, 
the result is pain; while the restoration of the organ to its 
natural state produces pleasure. But either disturbance or 
restoration may be gradual and imperceptible, so that there 
may be pain without consequent pleasure, and pleasure with- 
out antecedent pain.’ 

584A 43. ‘Or the absence of pleasure as painful.’ It is impossible 
to treat both pleasure and pain as merely negative. (See note 


BOOK IX. 357 


on 26.) Either the ‘absence of pleasure’=the interval be- 
tween true or positive pleasures, which is a neutral state mis- 
taken for pain, or the ‘absence of pleasure’=the interval 
between illusory pleasures, containing a real pain, out of a 
contrast with which the illusory pleasure sprang. 

323. 3- ‘Is not really, but only appears to be.’ It is not 
necessary for the argument to assume that the state of 
neutrality exists ; we only need the admission that ‘one and 
the same state may be pleasant or painful because of its rela- 
tions.’ —Bradley, Z.c. 

to. ‘ Pleasures which do not grow out of pain.’ There ave B 
non-illusory pleasures, which proves that the relative or nega- 
tive (illusory) pleasures are not strictly pleasures at all, and 
pleasure as such is not the mere negative of pain. There is 
much confusion in modern writers with regard to Plato’s view 
on this point, owing to the fact that in the present passage he 
analyses as merely negative many ‘so-called pleasures’ (27 
below), and it is forgotten how very explicit his theoretical 
conclusion is as expressed here and again (c 23 below), that 
pleasure is zo¢ mere relief from pain. 

18. ‘The pleasures of smell’: an excellent example, urged 
by Mr. Bradley, Zc. Compare the very important discussion, 
Philebus 51, in which to the pleasures of smell are added 
those of colour, form, and tone, together with the pleasures 
of knowledge, as examples of ‘ pure’ pleasures, #.e. not mixed 
with pain, and not merely relative. 

24. ‘Most of the so-called pleasures.’ Note the cautious C 
reserve of this statement. In the PAzedbus 46 £, he takes as 
a leading instance of pleasure inseparable from pain the 
pleasure of irritating an itching place. 

35. ‘In the nature of things a real Above and Below.’ D 
Contrast with this a wonderful passage in the Zimaeus 62 C, 
and Mr. Archer Hind’s note. I quote from his translation : 
‘This being the nature of the universe (viz., ‘ spherical’) 
how can one describe any of the said points as upper or 
lower without justly being censured for using irrelevant terms? 


358 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


For the centre cannot properly be described as being above 
or below, but simply at the centre; while the circumference 
is neither itself central nor has any difference between the 
points on its surface,so that one has a different relation to 
the centre from another point... . Indeed, if we were to 
walk round the sphere, frequently as we stood at the antipodes 
(‘antipous’) of our former position we should call the same 
point on its surface successively ‘above’ and ‘below.’ For 
this universe being spherical, as we said just now, no rational 
man can speak of one region as upper, and another as ' 
lower.’ 

For the purpose of the simile it is enough to imagine any 
distance with an identifiable starting-point and direction. 

324. 7. ‘And would be right in so thinking.’ His pain, the 
identifiable starting-point, is real, though perhaps intensified 
by juxtaposition with the supposed pleasure of relief. 

to. ‘Not acquainted with the real Above, and Between and 
Below.’ He does not know how much further he might have 
advanced, and therefore does not rightly estimate even the 
‘below’ which he knows. Could there be implied an antici- 
pation of the doctrine of the Zimaeus, which suggests that the 


‘true ‘above’ for the mind is where its kindred lies, in the 


585A 


region of intelligence to which it is attracted as like to like? 
(Cp. the rectification of a vulgar misconception of ‘above,’ 
254. 529, and the account of the true affinities of the soul, 
358. 611 E.) 

18. ‘Are really in pain.’ (See note on 322, 43, 584 A.) 
Pain is the positive in regard to certain pleasures. 

20. ‘Fulness of pleasure,’ lit. ‘filling and pleasure’= 
‘filling, ze. pleasure.’ Plato’s idea was that pleasure was 
always attendant on, or as he would say, actually consisted 
in, the process which re-adjusted some disturbance, or re- 
supplied some depletion, whether bodily or mental, in the 
living organism. See Sidgwick, quoted above, on 322, 35, 
583 E, and the second portion of the present argument, 
especially E 34, which shows, moreover, in what sense the 


BOOK IX. 359 


satisfaction of vulgar desire is here pronounced of to be a 
(real) filling, though of course it is a sort of filling. Plato’s 
own conception of pleasure the emptiness previous to which is 
not perceptible (see Sidgwick, cited above) leads up to the 
criticism passed on him by Aristotle, especially ZZ. x. 4, 4, 
and endorsed in one way or another by most modern 
thought, that pleasure is not essentially a process up to an 
equilibrium, but is complete while it lasts, and is the 
accompaniment of all psychical life when not obstructed or 
discordant. Although Aristotle carries the theory a step 
further than Plato, a careful student will see that he founds 
himself on Plato’s distinction and examples, e.g. Eth. x. 3, 7, 
(cp. Philebus 51-2), ‘there is no previous pain involved in 
the pleasures of the mathematician, nor, among the sensuous 
pleasures, in those of smell, nor, again, in many kinds of sights 
and sounds, nor in memories and hopes,’ and vii. 12, 2, 
‘there are pleasures which involve no previous pain or 
appetite.’ We must clearly bear in mind that Plato draws 
his theory of true pleasure only from the class of feelings 
referred to in these two passages, which follow his distinction. 
Aristotle both re-states in an improved form the theory of 
these higher pleasures, and—a very marked advance—applies 
the improved theory to explain the so-called lower pleasures 
as ‘a reaction of the organism, gva unimpaired, against the 
pain and want of its partially impaired condition.’—Stewart on 
Ethics vii. 12, 2. But granting that there is an element of 
positive pleasure in the satisfaction of the sensuous desires, 
it remains true that the recurrent uneasiness of craving is 
essential to the recurrence of the pleasures of such satisfaction, 
and that those who take these pleasures for a main object of 
life are under illusions as to their pleasantness, both because 
of the contrast with uneasiness which their nature involves, 
and because they have not experience of activities, which are 
able to engage the mind in a more complete and harmonious 
way. This latter point is now to be insisted on in the 
second portion of the argument. (See Section-heading.) 


360 COMPANION TO PLATO’S REPUBLIC 


585 B 34. ‘The man who eats, and the man who gets under- 
standing, be filled.’ (See previous note.) 

37. ‘And will fulness induced by a real substance,’ etc. 
Plato’s figure, which he applies throughout his theory of 
pleasure, is quite simple and natural, though open to the 
criticisms pointed out above, and the whole passage should be 
as literally rendered as possible. Here, ‘Is filling more real 
(‘true’) with that which zs in a higher degree or with that 
which 7s in a lower degree?’ lit., with what zs more (adverb) 
or what és Zess (adverb). 

40. ‘The more real the substance,’ etc., lit. ‘ plainly, with 
the more’ (the Greek has only four words); z.e. filling with 
what has the higher degree of being is more real filling than 
filling with what has the lower degree of being. If the idea 
of degrees of reality has any meaning to the reader, this 
whole argument runs quite easily ; if not, it cannot be under- 
stood at all. (See chapter on ‘ Degrees of Truth and Reality’ 
in Bradley’s Appearance and Reality.) 

42. ‘Do you think that pure being,’ more lit. ‘which 
kinds do you think partake of more pure being (or ‘more 
of pure being’)? ‘Things like bread, and meat, and drink, and, 
in short, all nourishment, or the kind which consists of true 

C Opinion, and science, and intelligence, and, in short, all 
excellence? Judge it in this way. Which do you think has 
the higher degree of being (lit. ‘zs more, adverb)? That 
which is connected with the unchanging, and undying, and 
real (‘true’), and itself is such, and is found in such? Or 
what is connected with the varying and perishing, and 
itself is such, and is found in such?’ ‘That which is 
connected with the unchanging is far in advance of the other,’ 
he replied. 

325. 15. ‘And does science enter at all less largely ?’ 
The translation is not wrong, but seems needlessly inverted. 
More lit., ‘Then does the being of the unchanging partake 
of being any more than of knowledge?’ z.c. has not the un- 
changing the attribute of knowledge (see 230. 22, and notes) 


BOOK IX. | 361 


in the same degree as that of being or reality? There is a 
variation of reading here by which ‘changing’ would take the 
place of ‘unchanging.’ As the implied assertion is that 
‘being’ and ‘ knowledge’ vary directly as each other through all 
experience, the alteration of reading would make no difference 
in the sense, and the variation is easily accounted for. 

If we read ‘changing,’ the rest of the translation is just 
as above, and the sense is, of course, ‘has not the changing 
the attribute of knowledge in the same (low) degree as that of 
being?’ To ‘partake of knowledge’ does not necessarily 
mean to be a knowing mind, but may very well be analogous 
to some such modern phrase as, ‘a possible object of science,’ 
or (‘the phenomena of sound’) are ‘ capable of mathematical 
treatment.’ In other words, science is idealised, and treated 
not as the knowledge in any mind, but in respect of its general 
character to which all universal order is akin. -This brings its 
meaning rather closer to that of ‘trueness’ (see 230. 4c.) 
than is convenient, but the two conceptions are so closely 
intertwined that the least change of point of view turns one 
into the other. 

Jowett’s version is clearer, rendering the previous question 
and answer, ‘And does the essence of the invariable partake 
of knowledge in the same degree as of essence?’ 

‘Yes, of knowledge in the same degree’; and continuing, 
‘ And of truth in the same degree ?’ 

“Yes.’ 

‘And conversely, that which has less truth will also have 
less of essence?’ On truth or trueness, see 230. 22, and 
notes. Here it is harder to distinguish from ‘ knowledge’ 
than there, because ‘knowledge’ here has come nearer to 
‘knowability.’ The sum of what Plato is maintaining is this: 
that reality or being has degrees, and that they are the same 
degrees as those in which the general characteristics of reason 
or intelligibility are present in the experience whose degree of 
reality is in question. Of the nature of these characteristics, 
as present, not only in abstract science, but in will and 


362 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


feeling, and, in short, in experience as a whole, the entire 
dialogue has been an analysis, which is being summed up, so 
far as the objects of action are concerned, in the present argu- 
ment. ‘The characteristics of reality are reducible in general 
to consistency and comprehensiveness. (See close of Book v. 
on the essence of knowledge as contrasted with opinion.) 

23. ‘Does not the cultivation of the body,’ etc., more lit. 
‘have not the kinds concerned with the service of the body 
a less share of trueness and being than those concerned with 
the service of the mind?’ (See following note.) 

585 D 28. ‘The body itself as less true and real than the 
mind.’ The only way to master this conception in its true 
light is to consider body and mind not as two things (dody 
and soul) on a level or side by side, but, as daily experience 
really teaches us, under some such point of view as that of 
part and whole. Our mind is the whole of our experience 
(this does not mean that experience is no more than a state 
of a man’s mind). Our body is a certain part within this 
experience, affecting us by pains, needs, desires, or by reflec- 
tion on our health, our physical capacities, or our appearance. 
How much of our day, of our thoughts, of our purposes, does 
it really occupy? How far do its needs mould our life or 
supply what we think of as enduring or important in our 
world? Of course it is a sine gua non of life, and is the 
machine by which we think; but if we take up the idea of 
degrees of reality we shall not be able. to claim for every sine 
gua non as high a level of reality as that which it renders 
possible. The relation between food and thought is an in- 
stance which puts the point clearly. Mind, in fact, is our 
universe, in which body is a mere element. 

31. ‘ That which is filled with substances more real,’ etc. : 
omit ‘ substance’; read ‘more really filled’ for ‘really more 
filled’; omit ‘things.’ Plato may be taken, in terms of his 
examples in the P%z/ebus, to be comparing, ¢.g., the gratifica- 
tion of sensuous desires with the gratification afforded by 
the perception of truth or beauty. The latter, or again 


BOOK IX. 363 


the advancement of a great cause, or the good of a country, 
with which the mind has identified itself, is, as might quite 
intelligibly be said to-day, a more substantial satisfaction. 

36. ‘Pleasant to a subject to be filled with the things that 
are naturally appropriate to it.’ ‘Subject’ and ‘things’ are, of 
course, not in the Greek, and ‘subject’ seems misleading, for 
the reference is primarily to the different kinds in the soul. 
(See 326. 16, 586 8.) I take this paragraph to mean: ‘The 
general definition of pleasure is a grasping or taking into 
itself by any psychical element of that which it is formed by 
nature to take in; and accordingly, within this general defini- 
tion, that element which grasps what has a higher degree of 
reality, and having itself a higher degree of reality (preceding 
paragraph) obtains a more substantial satisfaction, fulfils the 
definition of pleasure in a higher sense, and so produces in 
the man the most real and genuine (‘true’) pleasure; while 
that element which receives what has a lower degree of reality, 
and has itself a lower degree of reality (preceding paragraph), 
will obtain a less real and substantial satisfaction and will 
participate in a less trustworthy and genuine pleasure.’ The 
words ‘less trustworthy’ give the cue for interpretation. It 
is just the relation of knowledge to opinion over again; the 
inferior pleasure or object of desire is that which will not 
work, will not carry you through life, will become self-contra- 
dictory with a change of circumstance. In this judgment the 
different parts of the nature are regarded as the basis of 
different lives; but if they act harmoniously together and the 
whole nature pursues its whole object, then it could no longer 
be said that the objects of the lower elements are unsubstan- 
tial, because they have been taken up into the total orderly 
object of the total orderly nature, and unified with it. (See 
327. 11, 587 A.) Of course we are here not dealing with 
pleasure as mere agreeable feeling. None of these consid- 
erations would apply to it when treated in that abstract ~ 
sense. 

326. 13. ‘To satiate their greedy desire.’ ‘Greedy desire’ 586 B 


364 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


=‘ covetousness,’ the ‘getting or having more,’ which played 
so great a part in the argument of 30-32. 349-50 
above. | 

15. ‘Ravenous appetites,’ lit. ‘insatiateness.’ The satisfac- 
tion which is merely relative to a craving does not satisfy. 
Only an adequate object can satisfy a human self. This is 
the thought insisted on throughout these arguments on 
pleasure, and in the present passage enforced with the whole 
power of Plato’s rhetoric. 

16. ‘The unreal and incontinent part of their nature, 
more lit. ‘ not filling with realities the real and continent part 
of themselves.’ The term rendered ‘continent’ has nothing 
to do with the virtue of continence ; it is a word used of a 
vessel of any kind that does not leak, ze. is water-tight. 
Thus it emphasises the antithesis of permanent satisfaction 
and perishing enjoyment. (Cp. ‘ Whoso drinketh of this water 
shall thirst again.’) 

21. ‘Mere phantoms and rude outlines.’ ‘ Phantoms’ 
takes us back to the simile of the Den. ‘Rude outlines,’ 
lit., ‘drawn in (light and) shade,’ looking solid when they are 
not. (Cp. 321. 34, 583 B, note.) 

23. ‘They appear in each case to be extravagantly great, 
and beget.’ Both the pains and the pleasures are unreally in- 
tensified by contrast. (Cp. 322. 26 and 28, 583 E and notes.) 
How could the pains ‘beget a frantic passion’ for them- 
selves? I take it that the point is the inseparability of the 
pains from the pleasures of this class, so that the subject of 
the verb ‘beget’ is ‘each of them,’ in the sense of pains in- 
volving pleasures, and pleasures involving pains. A craving 
for a craving is the ultimate form of lust. But I do not 
feel sure that ‘each of them’ is to be pressed as subject to 
‘beget.’ Perhaps we should supply ‘and they beget,’ in allu- 
sion to the pleasures only. 

586C 26. ‘Like that phantom of Helen—Stesichorus.’ The poet 
(Sicilian Greek of seventh century B.c.) had spoken evil of 
Helen, and she struck him with blindness, whereupon he 


BOOK IX. 365 


wrote the palinode, or recantation, of which the first three 
lines are preserved. 

‘It is no true tale; thou wentest not in the well-benched 
ships, nor camest to Troy’s towers.’ He now said a phantom 
of her went to Troy, a story followed by Euripides. (See reff. 
in Mahaffy’s History of Greek Literature, i. 203, to which add 
a curious variant in Herod. ii. 112-118.) 

31. ‘The spirited element.’ (See Section-heading.) 

37. ‘To his own satisfaction,’ more lit. ‘ pursuing his fill of 586 D 
honour,’ etc. The idea is the same as in the treatment of the 
sensuous nature. Contention or distinction Zer se will make 
but discordant and uneasy objects for a man’s life. 

327. 6. ‘Since what is best for each is also most appro- 
priate.’ The nature of every thing is really one with its 
function, Book 1. end; hence the best for it, ze. the fullest 
attainment of its function in the system to which it belongs, 
is also most according to its nature, or ‘ homely,’ or ‘ proper’ 
to it, according to the term here employed. Things can be 
employed out of their true nature though within the possi- 
bilities of their nature; that is how the parts of the soul can 
get pleasures which come within the general definition of 
pleasures as ‘taking in what one (ze. that part) is formed 
by nature to take in,’ but yet are not proper far excellence 
as the pleasure indicated for that part by the complete system 
of the soul. (See note 325. 36, 585 p. For the general 
meaning here see Section-heading. ) 

10. ‘Wisdom-loving.’ Beware taking this to mean a sub- E_ 
ordination of the whole man to abstract intellectual pursuits. 
There is perhaps some drift in this direction beginning to 
affect Plato’s expression, but we must of course read what he 
says in connection with the whole theory of mind and society 
which he has laid before us. The rank of the intelligence 
comes primarily from its power to represent the whole. 

12. ‘Its own proper pleasures in the best and truest shape 587 A 
possible’; rather, ‘its own proper pleasures, and the best (for 
it) and so far as possible the truest.’ Its own pleasures may 


366 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


for any part be ‘the best,’ because the best is judged by the 
function of the part, but they cannot be the truest except in 
the highest part, for ‘truth’ is judged by absolute degree of 
reality. Only, as subordinate to a ‘true’ object, from which 
they gain consistency and durability, the pleasures of the 
inferior parts are true. 

18. ‘An alien and untrue pleasure.’ No part can violate 
‘justice’ without wrenching the whole nature out of. gear. 
This has been illustrated throughout ; e.g. in the ‘timocratic’ 
man mere ambition took the lead, and tried to hold down the 
covetous passions, but it ultimately had not the power to do 
so; and the appetitive or greedy element was gradually eman- 
cipated from its true subjection, while the intelligence became 
its slave. The pleasure is ‘alien’ because incompatible with 
the ‘ nature’ in the strict sense as embodied in the system as 
a whole; it is, however, so far akin to the psychical part in 
question as to be a sort of pleasure—something which that 
part is able to take in. Whether the ‘untrue’ pleasure is 
less pleasant than the ‘true’ pleasure is not absolutely de- 
monstrated, and one may doubt whether it can be. The 
presumptions of order, purity (in the Hedonistic sense), 
durability, comprehensiveness are on the side of the ‘true’ 
pleasures; but intensity, as Plato is well aware, is prima 
facie on the side of the untrue pleasures. The true force 
of the argument lies in the comparison of lives, and it is 
significant that this is the central idea of the myth in Book’ x. 

587 B34. ‘True and specially appropriate pleasure.’ ‘True,’ in 
the degree of being or reality possessed by faculty and object 
concerned (of which their ‘nearness to law and order’ is prac- 
tically the test); ‘appropriate’ or ‘proper,’ in the adjustment 
of functions to parts of the mind, so that its ‘nature’ may be 
fully developed in a harmonious whole; in short, as a ‘just’ 
nature. 

36. ‘The tyrant will live most unpleasantly’: an idealist 
conclusion in Hedonistic form. Perhaps the next Section 
shows that Plato is aware of this. 


BOOR IX. 367 


327. 39, 587 B—320. 8, 588 A. 


Attempt at a Hedonistic calculus, in accordance with Plato's 
manner of symbolising unknown conditions by numerical rela- 
tions, as in Book VIII. beginning, by a sort of anticipation of 
nature; perhaps in this case with a humorous feeling that 
a Hedonistic argument demands a strict calculus, and if the 
attempt turns out a parody, that result has its significance. His 
way of pressing home the demand for a moral and practical value 
in fine art ts a parallel instance of this tendency to pursue a 
commonplace idea till tt breaks down. 


328. 1. ‘The tyrant has trespassed beyond these last.’ He 
is more than third from reality, which is the miser’s place. 
(See Book .x. throughout; Greeks and Romans count the 
starting-point as ‘one.’) He is not under dominion of normal 
desire, but of desire which is extravagant and unlawful, and 
ought not to exist at all. 

13. ‘A copy of a copy.’ Better to keep the more literal 
rendering, which echoes through Book x. ‘If we are right so 
far, the tyrant consorts with a phantom of pleasure which is 
third in degree of truth (trueness) from the oligarchical man.’ 
Oligarchical man 1, democratic 2, tyrannical 3. 

16. ‘Reckoning from the kingly man’: counting in the 
starting-point as before, king or aristocrat 1, timocratic man 2, 
oligarchical 3. The oligarchical man is counted twice over ; 
is taken as a fresh departure on the downward road. Thus 
we get two threes, which suggest a square. 


Sect, 98. 


587 C 


26. ‘By squaring and cubing’; or, as Jowett, ‘if you raise D 


the power and make the plane a solid.’ Perhaps the whole 
implies a suggestion that the degradation proceeds by increas- 
ingly wide intervals. If the series leading up to the square 
was I, 2, 3, 6, 9, by cubing throughout we should get 1, 8, 
27, 396, 729; in which each figure would be the cube of that 
which had indicated the same place in the series, and the 
whole would express the rapid degradation below the ‘ oligar- 
chical’ man (who is represented by 27), z.e. when the region of 


368 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


extravagant lawless desire is entered. ‘To symbolise the ratio 
of the king’s pleasure to the despot’s as greater to less, the 
figures must be read in the opposite direction, ‘ conversely,’ 


29. 


588A 329, 1. ‘If days and nights and months are applicable 


Sect. 99. 


thereto.’ The days and nights in a year, taken as twice 365, 
would be 730, so the ratio ~4, might roughly be interpreted 
as ‘one day of the good life is worth a year of the bad’; ‘a 
day in thy courts is better than a thousand.’ 


329. 9, 588 a—End of Book 1x. 

The true portrait of the good and evil life as they affect 
the composite. soul of man, and their relation to the spiritual 
meaning of soctety and to the endeavours of the individual after 
perfection. 


B 329. 11. ‘It was stated, I believe, that injustice is profitable 


C 


to the man who is consummately unjust while he is reputed 
to be just.’ The first part of this is maintained by Thrasy- 
machus, 24. 6, 344 A, and the whole by Glaucon and 
Adeimantus first half of Book 11., especially 48. 36, 365 c. 

25. ‘A creature like one of those,’ ‘creature,’ lit. ‘ nature.’ 
It is not a bad rendering, for ‘nature’ here almost=‘a 
growth’ or ‘a birth.’ ‘Monsters’ not in the Greek; better, 
‘and many other (instances) in which it is said that several 
forms have grown together into one.’ The turn of the phrase, 
combining the numerous instances with the fact of many forms 
having grown into one in each instance, reminds us of the 
contrast of ‘the self of each,’ and the ‘manifold of each’ at 
the close of Book v. Observe that the soul as known in 
human life is not a unity from the outset, but almost infinitely 
multiform. 

34. ‘Which he can produce by turns in every instance out 
of himself.’ The ‘tame’ and ‘wild’ desires are here made 
original elements in the soul (see note on 305. 16, 571 B), 
but at the same moment almost infinitely modifiable. In 
fact, the distinction is not innate (see note referred to) ; but if 


i 


ae BOOK 1X. 369 


a definite portrait was to be given at all it would be hard to 
dispense with it, as it grows up just in proportion as the desires - 
take definite forms. 

41. ‘The first be much the greatest.’ We saw how the 588 D 
smallness of the intelligence was insisted on apparently as a 
type of its unified or centralised character, as a focus is 
smaller than the region whose movements come to a point 
in it, 129. 13, 428 E. This passage carries out the con- 
ception of man’s rational soul being that in which his distinc- 
tively human activity resides (end of Book 1.). _ Cp. 330. 7 E 
below. 

330. 1. .‘Make them grow together to a certain extent.’ 
Their natural degree of combination is only a possibility of 
unity ; their true or normal unity has to be made by a long 
training. (See 25 below.) 

13. ‘The lion and its members,’ lit. ‘the lion and the parts E 
about the lion.’ (Cp. 331. 26, 590 B.) The allusion to some- 
thing more than the lion, apparently connected with it in 
particular, seems unexplained. 

25. ‘To cultivate, like a husbandman.’ The unity of the 589 B 
self as a moral agent is not given but has to be made, and in 
making it the ‘inward man’ has to be brought into being, and 
the selection of impulses has to be carried out which forms the 
‘tame’ by discipline and extirpates those which prove wild or 
rebellious against the law of the whole. ‘The real operative 
power in this process is described 332. 590-1; the psycho- 
logical history of an isolated soul would only reveal such a 
process in a very slight degree, through dearly-bought aE 
ence, or not at all. 

41. ‘May we not assert that the practices,’ etc. This C 
whole passage, including the image of the composite creature, 
repeats the account which is given of true or universal morality, 
149. 28, 443 E, only with an express reference to the contrast 
of animal and divine elements in the mind which the earlier 
passage does not put prominently forward. At that earlier 
point the depths and heights of human nature—of the beast 

2A 


370 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


and the god in man—had not been sounded and scaled, and 
the fitness of the different psychical elements for. different 
functions with the need for harmony between them, rather 
than their inherently vicious or exalted tendencies, were in 
the writer’s mind. But the principle is the same. That act 
is good which confirms the harmonious system (and only the 
rational system is harmonious), and bad which tends to over- 
throw it. Plato was well aware of the force of habit, and 
speaks of it expressly in this connection, I50. 25, 444 D. 
The action forms the character. 

589 D331. 1. ‘To the man—perhaps I should say to the divine 
part.’ (Cp. 219. 7, 500 D and note.) This is the climax of 
the development through which the ‘philosophic element’ is 
traced, having been first pointed out as a characteristic of 
an intelligent and gentle animal (Book 11.). It is a remark- 
able linking together of the organic and spiritual world, and 
launches into history that thought of deity as a spirit, in man 
but more than mere man, which has wielded such enormous 
power in religion. Observe that the idea of an innate‘ tame’ 
and ‘wild’ element fails by itself to represent the essence of 
human wickedness. It is only when the divine part is en- 
slaved to the animal, that the animal becomes ‘more bestial 
than any beast,’ as the analysis of these two books shows. 

590 A 20. ‘Do you not think that intemperance.’ Intemperance 
stands for the word which, in Aristotle’s Z7/ics, Peters trans- 
lates profligacy. This is the germ of a list of vices, taken from 
common language as a verification of the theory. Profligacy 
is the opposite of temperance, in the relation of appetite to 
reason. 

B25. ‘Self-will and discontent’: three alternative vices of the 
‘spirited’ creature are described. The two first, in this and 
the following paragraph, are anticipated, 108-9. 411, in speak- 
ing of errors in the employment of music and gymnastic, but 
are not depicted in quite the same way. ‘Discontent’ or 
bad temper; does the serpentine element mean self-assertion 
taking the form of jealousy? This would be the opposite of 


BOOK IX. 371 


temperance in the relation of ‘spirit’ to ‘reason.’ (Cp. 147. 
38, 442 D.) 

29. ‘Luxury and effeminacy.’ This and the former vice 
seem related as defect and excess—an anticipation of 
Aristotle. These are the opposite of ‘courage.’ 

33. ‘ Flattery and servility.’ Vices arising from the subjec- 
tion of the ‘spirit’ to the ‘appetite,’ as in the miserly char- 
acter and lower in the scale. These would be an opposite of 
courage or manliness, in the larger sense as a right impression 
as to what should be feared; but the relation of spirit to 
appetite is not specially described in Book tv. 

37. ‘To become an ape instead of a lion.’ Showing how 
fully Plato recognised that the impulses have their character 
formed by the objects on which they are directed. 

40. ‘Coarseness and vulgarity’; more correctly, Jowett, 590 C 
‘mean employments and manual arts.’ This marks our 
great divergence from Plato, who still, in spite of his high 
conception of social unity, regarded complete intellectual 
conceptions, only possible to a few individuals (really, to 
none), as the cement and principle of society. We regard 
the whole of society as organic to the social intelligence, in 
as much as there 2s, in its spirit and will and actual co-opera- 
tion, more wisdom than it 4nows. ‘The cement is religion 
rather than intellect. (Cp. 187. 4, 473 D and note.) At the 
same time, we agree that the. more we all know, the better, 
and we see far higher intellectual possibilities for the rank and 
file than apparently Plato saw. . We do not understand how 
he came to neglect, in such a place as this, the educational 
value of manual training, which his idea of ‘music’ as the 
perception of beauty seems to insist on. To do him justice 
we should bear in mind that to him, as to Aristotle, it is 
chiefly the ezd that determines whether an employment is 
base or noble. It is not merely manual industry, but the 
pursuit of manual industry for gain, which is essentially 
‘mechanical’ to the Greek. Aristotle, ¢g., pronounces that 
drawing is good in education, if pursued in order to make 


372 COMPANION .TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


men sensitive to the beauty of objects; not, if learned for 
commercial purposes. Plato’s general account, which here 
follows, of the spiritual relation of society to inferior or 
immature minds, and in some degree to all minds, is un- 
impeachable. ? 

590 D 332, 11. ‘We believe it to be better for every one to be 
governed by a wise and divine power,’—the spiritual need for 
which society exists, as also for material needs. (See 53. 40, 

_ 369 B.) All require this in some degree, as the necessity of 
law demonstrates, and also in every society there will be some 
immature minds which are incapable even of full freedom 
under the law. This is the essential basis of Aristotle’s 
explanation, rather than defence, of slavery, applied to natures 
incapable of freedom. We refuse to recognise their existence 
in the case of sane adults. But in practice there are all 
degrees of dependence, some of which must always be 
recognised by society. The essential point is the ‘ good 
of the ruled,’ which includes his freedom within the law when 
capable of exercising it. The state, or external social whole, 
represents the unity of the inward principle which is our 
common guide. To-day, of course, the state is much more 
differentiated from mere society than it was with the Greeks. 
But the ultimate principle remains the same ; the mode of its 
application is a question of expediency. 

E18. ‘Law—that common friend (ally) of all the members of 
a state.’ In all of us the spiritual frame needs alliance from 
without, and finds it in the spirit and institutions (law in- 
cludes ‘unwritten’ law) which bind society into a whole. For 
the simile of alliance, see 291. 15, 559 E; for written and un- 
written law, 296. 20, 563 E. 

21. ‘Until the time when we have formed a constitution in 
them’: the structure of the moral self, a system of operative 
ideas. Morality must exist, as a principle in society, and in 
the educator who works under society, before it can be com- ~ 
municated to the child by the gradual process of discipline 
and habituation described in Books 11. and 111. The simile of 


NE Re Wine, cx0zc4 


BOOK IX. 373 


the ‘constitution,’ the ‘polity’ of the mind, runs ,of course * 
through the whole dialogue. 
29. ‘ That it is profitable for a man to be unjust’ ; aimed at 591 A 
the first part of the counter-thesis. (See 329. 11, 588 B and 
note.) ‘To be unjust’ simply means to go on forming habits 
which subjugate the divine to the bestial in the soul. 
35. ‘The advantages of disguising the commission of in- 
justice’; aimed at the second part of the counter-thesis, Zc. 
The good luck of escaping detection is really the worst mis- 
fortune, like that conjunction of circumstances which turns a 
voluptuary into a despot. 
_ 39. ‘Whereas if he is found out and punished.’ The B 
remedial or curative theory of punishment, if understood at 
this high level, includes what is true in the ‘retributive’ theory. 
Cp. 69. 18, 380 B, which as here, but with less explanation, 
puts forward the interest of the guilty person, and 107. 9, 
410 A, which refers also to the interest of society, but only 
as far as being rid of the criminal isconcerned. The deterrent 
effect is not referred to, though really implied in the retributive 
and remedial aspect of punishment as here stated. Even for 
remedial purposes, it is here made plain, the first necessity is 
to strike down the bad will; and this is really the point relied 
on by the retributive theory. The moral organism will not 
tolerate the discord forced upon it by the assertion of the bad 
will, and reacts against it. The particular form of the reaction 
may then be a question of expediency. This negation of the 
bad will involves 7/so facto a deterrent element in relation 
to possible criminals. This does not mean that the State 
punishes wickedness as such, for the State cannot judge of 
wickedness as such. But it punishes acts which it takes, on 
certain general rules, as expressions of a will hostile to the 
system of rights which it maintains. It seems clear that a 
thorough-going remedial or curative system, not limited by 
the idea of reacting only against infringements of a certain 
order, might vastly extend the limits of criminal law with the 
worst possible results, 


374 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


591C 333. 6., ‘ Will direct all his energies through life to this one 
object.’ From the portrait of the psychical material which enters 
into man, and an analysis of the spiritual operation of society, 
through education, law, and punishment, upon this material, 
Plato passes on to depict the perfection at which a duly 
trained soul will aim,—its realised unity as three parts or 
functions in one whole. And first he mentions the aim of 
intelligence, to be intent upon such ‘studies’ (in the wide 
meaning which we saw that Plato gave to his conception of 
‘culture’ or ‘ philosophy’) as will make the mind realise its 
most perfect growth. ‘ Loftiest disposition’ in the previous 
paragraph is lit. ‘ best nature.’ 

D_ 18. ‘Keeping the harmony of the body in tune.’ Cp. 107. 
38, 410 C on the true use of gymnastic, viz., as a mode of 
training the ‘spirited’ element of the mind, which, as we 
there saw, seemed in general to be especially related to the 
body conceived as the servant of mind. So here, Plato is not 
yet speaking of brute pleasures; but is insisting that the 
bodily qualities in which a Greek delighted—health, strength, 
and beauty—are not to form one’s ambition ; z.e. one is not to 
have a separate bodily ambition or desire for distinction ; but 
the whole spirited and athletic temper, the bodily note, is to 
be adjusted to that which the full ‘strain’ of the ordered self 
demands. This has much in common with the criticism of 
existing athletics and the demand for a ‘ finer kind of training,’ 
IOO. 10, 404 A. 

24. ‘In the acquisition of wealth,’ in the work of the 
appetitive and acquisitive part of the mind, which is necessary 
to life as caring for its material substructure. ‘This, in 
accordance with the whole drift of the Repud/ic, anticipates 
the line taken by Aristotle in dealing with ‘ chrematistic,’ or 
industry and commerce, and his distinction between that part 
of it which is ‘natural,’ ze. is essential to man’s nature as a 
whole, and that which is not. The epithet ‘ chrematistic’ is 
applied to the industrial class of the Republic, 136. 35, 434 C. 
The introduction of the term ‘ infinite’ in this place is notice- 


“a . 
BOOK IX. 375 


able, as Aristotle develops the same idea, which is, in short, 
that sheer money-making has broken loose from any rational 
purpose, and therefore from any limit. 

42. ‘Likely to break up his existing condition.’ Perhaps 592 A 
we may trace a hint of the moral valetudinarian, the saintwho 
fears to touch the world, in this as in other passages of the 
latter part of the Republic. We should feel grave doubts 
whether a man was in good moral health if he refused an 
important public office for fear it should lead him to act from 
mixed motives. 

334. 4. ‘In his own city.’ This, with the words ‘in heaven,’ 
below, recalls the phrase ‘ your conversation (citizenship) is in 
heaven,’ and reinforces the popular idea of other-worldliness 
which attaches to Plato’s views. A certain law of detachment 
from the present undoubtedly is implied, because the idealist 
is always, by the nature of the case, tempted to feel that he 
is not in ‘his own city,’ Ze. in one of which the facts cor- 
respond with the idea. But the temptation is one to be 
resisted, for after all the idea and the idealist are the spirit 
and issué of the existing facts, and, so far as this is the case, 
the present city is always his own. The reservation of the 
following line should be noted. ‘Unless some heaven-sent 
chance occurs.’ Plato may be thinking of an opportunity to 
intervene as an authority or as adviser to one in authority, 
but of course such an opening may take many analogous 
forms of which he had no experience. Perhaps it is a heaven- 
sent chance when a Matthew Arnold works with an Education 
Department. 

g. ‘ Region of speculation,’ lit. (the city which) ‘lies in dis- 
course.’ ‘ Region’ is an unfortunate term. 

11. ‘Perhaps in heaven’ (see previous note and 197. 33, 592 B 
484 C, ‘who possess 77 ¢heir soul no distinct exemplar’). The 
reference to heaven is a mere passing figure of speech, and 
should in no sense be drawn into connection with the mode 
of being to be assigned to the ‘Forms.’ The point of this 
conclusion is that at least every one may try to organise his 


376 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


own nature according to the scheme of a community in which 
man’s being would find perfect expression, and he is not to 
be discouraged in this attempt. by the consideration that such 
a community can hardly come to exist (for in fact every level 
of existence would give rise to a fresh demand for perfection ; 
even the good state would grow in goodness with accelerating 
velocity, 122. 33, 424 A, note). But he can and will mould 
his conduct on the plan of such a city (z.e. the best he knows), 
and not give in to the practices of any other. This involves, 
to an indefinite extent, withdrawal from some spheres of pre- 
sent life. In this interpretation I assume, with (I presume) 
Davies and Vaughan and Jowett, that the meaning of ‘ inter- 
fere with politics,’ 2 above, has been modified and deepened 
by ‘to organise himself,’ 13 (lit. ‘plant a city in himself’: cp. 
the ‘polity’ of the soul, 332. 22, 591 A), and therefore that 
the last line does not merely mean ‘he will take a part in 
politics in such a city, if realised, but in no other.’ It must 
be remembered that acts of civic relation are to Plato simply 
the outside of which the organised or moral will is the inside, 
though of course a private citizen works for the Whole less 
directly than a Demosthenes. He will do his best to mould 
himself, and, with himself, necessarily his society; but there 
are things (and in Plato’s mood at this point we must take the 
expression to cover a good deal) which he will find himself 
unable to touch. 


BOOK X 
PART V 


ILLUSION AND EMOTION, AND REALITY 
OF THE MIND 


Prefatory Note.—With the end of Book rx. the continuous 
argument of the Republic is brought to a close. The tenth 
book, the fifth natural division of the dialogue, forms an 
Epilogue, as the first book with half the seeond formed a Pro- 
logue; the analysis of. morality in its working nature and 
conditions has occupied the entire interval. Book x. does 
not, however, knit up all the threads of the discussion, as 
Book 1. began to unravel them. It rather returns on a 
single though fundamental point, the earlier treatment of 
which in Books 1. and ul. can now be confirmed and 
deepened in consequence of the psychological and meta- 
physical discussions which formed the body of the dialogue. 
The point is fundamental, because it determines the whole 
tendency and system of education and indeed of intellec- 
tual and imaginative life, and it is on this tendency and 
system that the character of society, according to Plato’s 
analysis, must depend. The relation of imagination to reality 
and to feeling is therefore the problem of the tenth book, and 
the discussion gives us an opportunity of facing the doctrine 
of Forms in its most difficult and paradoxical shape, and adds 
to the treatment of perception and cognition, to which the 
central allegory of the Den has so far been chiefly applied, a 


parallel criticism of emotion which helps to connect Books 
377 


378 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


vii. and 1x. with Books v.; vi., and vul., by exhibiting the 
allegory of the Cave in its import for feeling as well as for 
cognition. The metaphysic and psychology of Book x. are 
adapted to the triple division of the soul, but combine with 
this some reference to the four levels of cognitive judgment 
distinguished through Books vi. and vir. It may be said that 
the two higher cognitive phases—the mathematical and the 
philosophical judgment—are here treated as one, the intel- 
lectual world ; while the two divisions of ‘seeming’ are re- 
tained. It is then easy to pass from a psychological discourse 
to the ultimate nature and fate of the soul, in the account of 
which a note of difference is discernible when compared with 
the image of the composite creature at the close of Book 1x. 
The change of standpoint may be interpreted either as a re- 
currence to mystical dualism, or as a larger hope regarding 
the process of unification described in the earlier passage. 
The composite creature was after all only the material of a 
moral being, and not the unified man. 

I see no way of bringing together the various points which 
illustrate each other in this difficult discussion except by the 
use of a tabular form. Plato distinctly intends the parts of 
his subject to be treated as corresponding to each other in 
definite relations, and the diverse points of view from which 
the same matter is regarded are exceedingly suggestive if 
brought together. I therefore subjoin a schematic account 
of the correspondences of object, cognition, and emotion in 
Book x., intended to draw the reader’s attention to their 
natural meaning and connection with the whole plan of 
the Republic, 


Object and its Author. 

1. ‘The Form,’ what 
a (thing) is, its nature, 
created by God, Ze. 
by Nature or evolution 
(336-9. 596-7), seems to 


= ‘the purpose for which 
produced or evolved’ 
(344-5. 601). 


2. Object such as we 
use, or actual law of a 
state, made by crafts- 
man or legislator (336. 
596; 344. 601-2; 341. 
599). 


3. Reflections in mirror 
(337. 596), pictures (2d. 
and 339. 597-8), poems 
(349. 605), made by pain- 
ter and poet, who are 
‘on a level’ (349. 605), 
or, in general, works of 
‘imitator.’ (See classi- 
fication of Cave simile. ) 


BOOK X. 


Cognitive Attitude. 


1. ‘Sczence,’ such as is 
possessed by the user 
of anything that has a 
purpose, who determines 
what the thing ts to 
be (344-5. 601-2). The 
rational element (346. 
602) passes into cor- 
rected perception. 


2. ‘Belief’ or Common- 
sense, of the craftsman 
who acts on instructions 
(344. 601-2): cp. end of 
Book v1. This seems on 
a level with the corrected 
perception furnished by 
weighing, measurement, 
and counting (346. 602, 
and cp. table with reter- 
ence to Philebus close 
of Book v1). 


3. Something which 
zs ‘Neither science nor 
right opinion’ (345. 602) 
on a level with ocular 
illusion, which deludes 
us in spite of measure- 
ment, etc. (346. 602-3: 
cp. table at close of Book 
viI., though  ‘ Guess- 
work’ is not zamed in 
Book xX). 


Book x. (beginning) —339. 15, 597 E. 


The discussion of the nature of ‘imitation’ ts entered upon by 
a distinction between levels of reality, the Form, the craftsman’s 


production, and the reflection in a mirror. 


379. 


Emotional Attitude. 


r and 2. ‘One part, 
prepared to obey the direc- 
tion of law’ (348. 604). 
The rational and ‘self- 
respecting temper (reason 
and spirit are treated 
as acting together and 
forming this ‘ one part’). 


3. The sentimental 
(349-51. 604-6), vulgar, 
and sensuous disposition, 
which resists law, as false 
perception resists reason, 
and is to the poet as 
ocular illusion to the 


painter (349. 605). 


Sect. 100. 


Applied to the case 


of representative art, this distinction exhibits the poet and 
painter as on a level with the person who holds up a mirror 
to the objects of sense-perception. 


380 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


595A 335. 5. ‘About poetry.’ Cp. QI. 24, 39, 397 D and E; 49. 
22, 365 E; and the connection of poets and tyrants more 
recently and explicitly referred to, 302. 33, 568 A. 

8. ‘Which is imitative.’ Definition of imitation in poetry, 
86. 1 to 5, 393 Bandc. 

g. ‘The specific parts of the soul have been’ distinguished ; 
this gives a formal reason for taking up the analysis of 
imitation again. 

B_ 15. ‘Imitative poets’; rather, ‘artists’ in general. 

18. ‘Who do not possess the antidote in a knowledge of 
its real nature’: a most important reservation if pressed. It 
would indicate Plato’s ultimate meaning to be that the right 
enjoyment of art involves a sense of the artistic illusion, as 
contrasted with a naive acceptance of the show as true or 
real. And he certainly does mean this at least, though he 
paradoxically banishes even such a right enjoyment from his 
perfect society. 

C 25. ‘To honour a man at the expense of truth.’ The 
phrase strongly suggests that used by Aristotle, Z¢hics i. 6, 1, 
of his relation to Plato whom he is about to criticise; and 
I think the place in Aristotle is an echo of this passage. 

31. ‘The nature of imitation generally.’ The primary 
contrast in Plato’s mind, when he used the word imitation 
in connection with art, was not as with us between ‘ imita- 
tion’ and ‘creation,’ but between the production of useful 
objects—houses, couches, tools, and the copying of them in 
pictures or descriptions. See Sofhist, 266 p, and cp. Aris- 
totle’s Physics, 199 A, 15. This contrast, easily extended to 
natural as well as artificial objects, plainly rules the scheme 
of realities in the present passage, the artist or copyist being 
inferior to the workman or producer. ‘Thus we can under- 
stand more easily that Plato’s mind was moving, so to speak, 
upwards and not downwards. His argument is not: ‘art is imi- 
tation, and not inspiration, therefore worthless,’ but: ‘some of 
the arts are not useful production, but strictly imitation ; of 
what are they capable?’ In other words, ‘imitation’ is not 


BOOK X. % 381 


limited for him by a hard line as against the creative imagina- 
tion; the hard line is for him between ‘imitation’ and pro- 
duction, and there is nothing but the initial difficulty of the 
subject to prevent ‘imitation’ from growing in his hands into 
creation or expression. In the case of music and the archi- 
tectural or decorative arts, which are for the most part non- 
representative, he more readily appreciates their expressive 
or symbolic function, and shows of what elasticity his term 
‘imitation’ was capable by actually calling a beautiful rhythm 
or set of proportions ‘an imitation’ of a manly self-controlled 
character. (See 96. 11, 401 A.) It is clear, I think, that 
that passage refers primarily to what are in our sense non- 
imitative arts, though it also alludes to arts of representation, 
all of which, of course, have in them purely decorative 
elements. Therefore we should best understand the follow- 
ing discussion by regarding it as an attempt to work out 
theoretically the distinction between production and imitation, 
on the lines ‘decorative and musical beauty I know, and 
within it the expressive value (‘imitative,’ if you like) of 
colour, sound, form, harmony, and proportion (cp. Repudiic, 
Zc., and Philebus, 51), but what do we gain by mere- copying 
and impersonation ?’ 

336. 10. ‘Which includes the numerous particular things’ ; 
rather, ‘we are accustomed to assign in each case a single Form 
to each manifold (group of many) which we call by the same 
name.’ (See close of Book v. and notes.) 

14. ‘Any one of those numerous things’; rather, ‘any 
manifold.’ 


596 A 


19. ‘Of Forms in connection with these articles’: an appeal B 


to fact. ‘Articles’=‘articles of household furniture’; not 
‘only two shapes,’ of course, but ‘only two characteristic 
looks, or plans,’ such as that by which you know a bed 
from a table when you see them. 

23. ‘Accustomed to say that the manufacturer of’; better, 
‘workman who makes’; an appeal to language. ‘We commonly 
say that the workman who makes either of these articles of 


382 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


furniture has the Form of it before his eyes (we should perhaps 
say ‘the notion of it in his head’) while he is making the 
bed or table which we use’; ‘which we use’ defines their 
position against the work of fine art and against the notion. 

596 C 26. ‘No manufacturer constructs the Form,’ no workman 
creates the notion of the thing. Does not the inventor, we 
may ask? And if we consider carefully what sets the pro- 
blem to the inventor, and how he solves it—the evolution of 
artificial products—we shall be on the way to a more vital 
idea than is common of what Plato may have meant by a 
Form. What is it that ultimately determines what the work- 
man is to make? Plato is on firm ground in denying that 
the workman, gwa workman, determines it for himself. (See 
scheme at beginning of Book x. as to the ‘belief’ of the 
craftsman.) We know to-day that our houses, churches, 
furniture, machinery, all have their growth and history— 
their ‘nature’—and are not created de novo by individual 
craftsmen. 

337. 1. ‘Ingenious person,’ lit. sophist, probably in old 
sense of ‘sophos,’ a cunning workman, with perhaps a touch 
of double entendre. 

4. ‘Architect,’ lit. ‘ workman.’ 

6. ‘Manufacturer,’ lit. ‘poet’ (maker). 

D_ 13. ‘Takea mirror.’ Shakespeare’s ‘hold the mirror up to 
nature’ has, without intention, a deeper meaning than this. 
See the whole passage, Ham/e/, Act iii. Scene 2, especially the 
words ‘and (show) the very age and body of the time his form 
and pressure.’ It would take a good looking-glass to do 
that. 

E 20. ‘Not truly existing things.’ This sentence only says 
that pictures are unreal, but it looks as if the interlocutor 
used the term ‘existing in truth or reality,’ at his own natural 
level, of the common objects of sense-perception. 

22. ‘The painter.’ ‘The Greek word for the painter as 
artist, ‘life-painter,’ seems to reflect a sort of primitive wonder 
that the hand of man can fix the image of a living thing. We 


BOOK X. 383 


call him simply a painter, the wonder having worn off ; just 
as we say ‘to shoot,’ where a novelist of a century ago would 
say ‘to shoot flying.’ ‘This class of’ workman, ze. likeness- 
makers as opposed to producers of realities. 

24. ‘Unreal,’ devoid of ‘trueness.’ The judgment that they 
are what they give themselves out to be would be false ; their 
being is not consistently connected with the whole of experi- 
ence. (See close of Book vi. on ‘trueness.’) 

30. ‘Which according to our doctrine constitutes the 597 A 
reality. of a bed,’ etc., more lit. ‘which we assert to be what-a- 
bed-zs, but only a bed.’ The ‘zs’ is accented as when it= 
‘exists’; in merely saying ‘a bed is made of wood,’ it would 
not have the same accent. The usage is coloured by associa- 
tion with such phrases as ‘there ave times when,’ ‘there ave 
persons who,’ and with ‘what zs’=‘what exists,’ in all of 
which the verb is accented. It implies a contrast with the mere 
predication of an attribute. We often accent the verb ‘is’ in 
an analogous way; ¢.g. Mill against Whewell, Zogic, Book 
iil. chap. 2, footnote, writes: ‘The word inherent zs the 
theory,’ ze. constitutes its nature. These simple pronominal 
phrases, which we might use in everyday conversation, were 
the starting-point of some of Aristotle’s most technical for- 
mulz. He constantly employs such a phrase as ‘what it és 
to be’ so and so, and many kindred forms, to express with 
different modifications the nature of a thing or attribute; and 
the use of ‘some,’ or ‘a certain one,’ which I have rendered 
‘a bed,’ is also quite technical in Aristotle as indicating either 
an individual or a species as distinguished from a wider class. 
Here of course the technical meaning is only in germ, and the 
beautiful directness of the conversational usage is preserved. 

33- ‘What really exists’; this refers to the ‘reality of a bed.’ 
‘If he does not make what (a thing) 45,’ ze. ‘if he does not 
constitute or determine the true nature of anything.’ 

34. ‘A real thing,’ lit. ‘that which_zs’ (participle), and so 
in the next line. The common rendering imbues us uncon- 
sciously with the notion that the Forms are ¢hings. 


384 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


43. ‘Things as substantial as a bed,’ lit. ‘even this,’ ze. 
the craftsman’s production. 

338. 1. ‘Shadowy objects when contrasted with reality,’ 
more lit. ‘indistinct in respect of trueness.’ Cp. 230. 14, 508 D 
for the connection between distinct apprehension and _ true- 
ness. The craftman’s work, we might suggest, is capable of 
very different degrees of success, in carrying out the idea 
which he tries to carry out. ‘That is not much of a knife, — 
a common phrase enough in English—means that the material 
production before us is a long way from having the proper- 
ties which its purpose or notion requires. Its reality as a 
piece of metal is a different affair, and does not contribute to 
its reality as a knife, except in so far as it is a property of a 
knife to be made of metal. 

597B 7. ‘One exists in the nature of things,’ lit. ‘in nature.’ 
‘Nature,’ in Greek philosophy, is never far removed from the 
meaning of the corresponding verb, ‘to be born,’ and ‘to 
grow. I believe that to render it by ‘evolution,’ quite 
understanding that no definite theory of origins is implied, 
would take us much nearer Plato’s meaning than ‘nature,’ 
which in our language is opposed both to God and to man. 
‘One is that which evolution has produced, which we should 
say, I suppose, was the workmanship of God.’ The main 
properties of objects, natural and artificial, are determined by 
deep seated conditions ; but in the work of the human work- 
man, or in the individual specimen of plant or animal, there 
are variations which, relatively speaking, are accidental—due 
to immediate influences. 

C 22. ‘From making more than one in the universe,’ etc. 
‘Universe’=‘nature’; perhaps ‘from bringing to pass more 
than one bed in the course of evolution, he made acccord- 
ingly one only, that very ‘“ what-a-bed-zs,”’ i pamphinerts 
‘that very self of a bed, which is what a bed 2s.’ 

25. ‘Created,’ lit. ‘begotten,’ or ‘caused to grow.’ 

27. ‘If God has made only two (as many as two), a single 
bed would again,’ etc. This sounds like a mere appeal to the 


BOOK X, 385 


abstract result of comparison—we should compare the two, 
and get a general idea including both. But this ‘general 
idea,’ of course, if true, indicates some character of reality ; 
not that it itself exists as a thing besides the two individual 
‘beds,’ but that there is some condition or necessity which 
is identical in the two cases, and accounts for both. This 
the general course of evolution prescribes. 

29. ‘This would be the absolute essential bed,’ more lit. 
as above, ‘this would be the very—what-a-bed-zs.’ 

32. ‘To be the real maker of the really existing bed,’ etc., 597 D 
try ‘wishing to be really the maker (poet) of “‘ bed” in its real 
being, not merely of a bed, nor to be merely a2 bed-wright 
(cp. note on 337. 30, 597 A) he grew it as a unity by course 
of nature ’—‘ ephusen’ ‘ begot,’ or ‘ caused to grow’; ‘ phusei’ 
nature,’ or ‘by the process of growth.’ Here again ‘ evolved 
it by evolution’ would be nearer the thought—he determined 
what a bed was to be. 

38. ‘Creator ’=‘ natural author,’ ‘ begetter.’ 

40. ‘By creation,’ lit. ‘by nature. ‘He has made’ is 
literal; the word here is not ‘begotten,’ as above. The 
_ identification of ‘nature,’ ‘growth,’ or, as I suggest, ‘evolu- 

tion,’ with the workmanship of God is very remarkable. (Cp. 
closing sentence of Zimaeus, ‘the only begotten universe.’) 

339. 7. ‘The author of that which is twice removed from E 
the thing as it was created’; the original is quaintly elliptical, 
‘then him of the third product from nature you call an imitator.’ 
‘Twice removed’ stands throughout in Davies and Vaughan 
for the ‘third from.’ It is better to retain the latter, which 
has reference to the descending scale of lives in Books vu. and 
1x. ; ‘third,’ because the starting-point counts one. Thus there 
are two intervals (Davies and Vaughan’s ‘ removes,’) but three 
‘products.’ ‘From the thing as it was created,’ lit. ‘from nature’ ; 
but ‘nature’ has for us become so petrified a term, that 
Davies and Vaughan’s ‘created,’ or, as I suggest, ‘evolved,’ is 
really closer, and ‘as it grew up’ would ‘be another alternative. 

11. ‘Is the third in descent from the sovereign, and from 


2B 


386 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


truth,’ lit. ‘is by nature (is born or grown) a third from the 
King and from.Trueness.’ The indefinite pronoun attached 
to ‘third’ makes it a qualifying attribute, and not a mere 
ordinal number, ‘one of the third class’: cp. 328. 587. 
This seems to bring the imitator as such to the level of the 
‘oligarchical man,’ the first character in whom desire as such 
has supremacy; and in reference to ‘trueness’ (Books v1. 
and vu.), taking the intelligible world as one and not two 
(see prefatory note to Book x.), the maker of reflections or 


‘likenesses is third from the intelligible world, the objects of 


Sect.101. 


common-sense conviction, which=ordinary educated percep- 
tion, being between the two. But Plato wants to bring down 
the tragedian to the level of the tyrannical man, and appar- 
ently the argument so far is only a. first approximation. 
At best, then, ‘imitation’ corresponds to the dreamer’s and 
sensuous man’s impressions of life. 


339. 15, 598 A—340. 15, 598 D. 
Further analysis of imitation tn the case of the pictorial artist. © 
He copies the workman's work without reference to the under- 
lying. nature, and even the former he does not aim at reprodu- 


cing as it is, but only as it is seen from a single point of view. 


So he does not imitate even the relative reality of the work- 


- man’s work, but only a phantasm of it. Therefore imitation 


has no hold of reality in the way of knowledge. 


598A 339. 16. ‘The originally created object,’ lit. ‘the self of 


B 


each (thing or quality) in ‘‘nature.”’ (Cp. close of Book v. 
and 338. 7, 597 B.) 

1g. ‘As they really exist,’ as they are or as they appear; 
‘as they are’ is of course relative, accepting complete or 
unified sense-perception as a standard. As they ‘appear’= 
as they look to the eye, not, as they are opined to be. 
Painting, being in two dimensions only, must surrender not 
only the tactual image, but the combination of ocular images 
from different standpoints. 

32. ‘Imitation of a phantasm.’ ‘The painter represents 


BOOK X, 387 


not the object in its solid completeness, but only his partial 
view of it. This seems as if intended to make the painter a 
third from the workman, and so bring him down to the 
tyrant’s level (328. 587); but of course the workman is not 
third, but second, from reality. The ‘phantasm’ is obviously 
false only as being partial. It is the right view under its 
conditions, and any other would be wrong. It presents 
railway lines as converging, but it does not say that they 
converge for a train running along them. 

36. ‘Seizes upon an object in a small part of its extent, 
and that small part is unsubstantial.’ First, the artist only 
copies the object of common perception, knowing nothing of 
its significance or determining conditions, ‘only lays hold of 
each (thing) in a small degree.’ Secondly, he cannot attempt 
to reproduce even this as it is for reflective or combined 
perception, but only copies (or reproduces) an image or 
shadow of it—what will go on a flat surface; ‘unsubstantial,’ 
lit. ‘image,’ or ‘wraith. Thus, to illustrate from what 
follows, he will paint you a picture of a shoemaker. Now, 
first, he knows nothing of the trade, the work or function, in 
which the shoemaker’s social value and his form or essence, 
gua shoemaker, consists, and therefore he cannot try to 
reproduce the spirit of that. Secondly, he only makes a flat 
image, which can hardly be mistaken for a real man- except 
by silly people and when seen from a distance. I am not 
sure whether he also implies that an intelligent person looking 
close into the picture would see that the artist knew no facts 
of the trade, and so had not painted even an image of a 
genuine shoemaker. 


340. 16, 598 D—343. 38, 601, | Sect. 102, 

Verification of previous assertion that tragic poetry, like 
painting, ts third from reality (at best). 

340. 19. ‘That dramatic poets are acquainted not merely 


with all arts, but with all things human.’ Plato is here attack- 
ing bad criticism, such as still to a great extent prevails, and 


388 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


such as he caricatures throughout in his own use of Homer, 
e.g. 100. 404. This helps us to understand how essential he 
found it, for the sake of clearness, to establish, even with 
brutal plainness, the fundamental principle of esthetic, that 
art deals with appearances only, and judged by the tests of 
practical reality must be found hopelessly wanting. Probably, 
as well as bad criticism, he had also to take account of bad 
art, though at present he is speaking of Homer. ‘ All things 
divine’: he strongly felt the evil of accepting the poets as 
popular theologians and moralists, 47, 6, 364 A. 

599 A. 28. ‘Twice removed from reality,’ more lit. ‘third in the 
series from reality.’ (See note on 339. 7, 597 E.) 

36. ‘Both the original and the representation,’ lit. ‘ that 
about to be copied and the image of it.’ Of course the object 
in question is that which a man ex hypothesi may be able to 
produce, viz., the second from reality. Plato, omitting all 
relations of art but that of copy to original, assumes that the 
original is of more value than the copy. This blindness 
is probably in part humorous. 

D 341, 20. ‘Only once removed from the truth,’ etc., more 
lit. ‘only second from truth and not third.’ 

28. ‘What State attributes to you the benefits derived from 
a good code of laws?’ ‘The actual law-giver, then, is second 
from reality. (Cp. 239. 18, 517 £.) 

600E 343. 12. ‘Copy unsubstantial images.’ Here the artists 
are ‘imitators of images,’ but, 341. 21, 599 D, ‘artificer of an 
image.’ It would be easy to explain the variation by regarding 
the ‘imitator’ now as copying a true workman’s. work in his 
own picture or poem, and again as copying in his work of art 
the false image or notion of the workman’s work which is in 
his own mind or indeed in the minds of others (cp. 345. 25, 
602 8, thus putting in a further step between the artist and the. 
reality. You may regard the picture as=the artist’s idea, or 
as one remove below even that. 

601 B30. ‘What a poor appearance the works of poets present.’ 
Cp. Apology, 22 B, about the poets under cross-examination. | 


BOOK X. 389 


343. 40, 601 B—345. 36, 602 B. , Sect. 103. 

Position of the ‘imitative’ artist, with reference to judging 
the beauty, goodness, and rightness of acts and objects—a 
metaphysical problem. The highest degree of cognition rests with 
the user of objects, who is familiar with their purpose, which 
gives him ‘ science’ of their goodness or badness. The knowledge 
of the divine author, which we might have expected to find as 
the counterpart of his creative activity, is not introduced into the 
question. It, or some tdeal of insight, would have to be appealed 
to of natural objects were to be treated as artificial products are 
treated here. When animals are mentioned, tt is likely that 
Plato has primarily in mind their services to man, cp. close. of 
Book I., instance of the horse. The. second level of cognition 
(the two divisions of ‘intelligence’ not being here separated) is 
the ‘belief’ which guides the producer of the useful object, who 
acts on the instructions given him by another (the user), and 
not on his own insight. This ‘belief’ ts in other words ‘right 
opinion. It remains, then, that the ‘imitator’ should possess 
only ‘ guesswork, or the mere perception of likeness and proba- 
bilities about the rightness and wrongness of the matter he deals 
with, but his position ts described only by negation, the technical 
term from the end of Book VI. not being introduced. He will 
even copy the. disordered impressions current among the multitude, 
thus being below the third place from reality. (Cp. 343. 12, 
600 E, and close of Book V.) 


“344. 3. ‘Examine it satisfactorily,’ or adequately, z.e. make 601 C 
an effort actually to grasp what is designated by the terms 
appearance and reality used in contrast. 

20. ‘Each single thing involves three particular arts.’ D 
The art of the ‘user’ is illustrated by those of the rider or 
flute player: it seems strange to have arts like these treated 
as involving ‘science’ (345. 5, 602 A), when, asa rule, the 
useful arts are degrading (244. 42, 522 B), and even in the 
highest sense the name ‘art’ can only be applied to such 
sciences as geometry, and not to dialectic (260. 22, 533 D). 


390 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


Plato is illustrating his point by very simple cases, and making. 


free use of the flexibility with which the words art and 
science were commonly employed for any professional skill, 
as we saw in Book 1. So far as a man really grasps the 
purpose or function of an object, so far he has knowledge 
about it which belongs to the highest order, although it 
cannot amount to science in the full sense of dialectic, unless 
completed by similar knowledge extending through the whole 
of life and nature. If you understood life and nature and 
society as a musician understands his instrument (so we may 
expand Plato’s idea), then you would have genuine science 
or philosophy. (Cp. Hamlet and the recorders.) - 

25. ‘Excellence, beauty, and correctness.’ These are not 
for Plato other than reality, but are forms in which reality 
shows itself, and he mentions them rather than it, though it 
is the subject of the discussion, in order to make quite plain 
in definite examples what he is talking about and what is 
meant by grades of reality. ‘Excellence’ is the quality by 
which anything whatever is enabled to discharge its function 
(Book 1. close). ‘Beauty’ is the quality by which objects 
impress upon feeling the pleasantness of a harmonious whole 
(96-7. 401-2). ‘Correctness’ or ‘rightness,’ lit. ‘straightness,’ 
must mean the agreement of ‘an object with a rule. It is 
plain to any one who has followed the argument of the 
dialogue that these three properties express the principle of 
‘trueness’ .or rationality, and ultimately that of goodness or 
purpose, from different sides ; and all of them centre, as the 
rest of the sentence says, in ‘the want for which it (product, 
action, or creature) was made or evolved’ (‘ made’ or ‘ grown’). 

- This is a popular explanation or application of what is meant 
-by the ‘Form’ of things or attributes, in the light of the Form 
of the Good, or ‘ what they are good for.’ See table at begin- 
ning of Book x., and cp. Aristotle, Politics i. 2.‘ Every- 
thing is defined by its function.’ Throughout Book x., and 
especially in the present passage, we are inclined to ask how 
the theory could apply to natural objects or to human life. 


BOOK X. 391 


We have ‘actions’ and ‘animals’ included in this passage, 
and for ‘actions’ we remember that the common craftsman 
is the ordinary legislator, while the person who understands 
their purpose or knows their true function is no doubt the 
philosopher or philosophic legislator. For ‘animals’ Plato 
may be thinking first of théir services to man; but in the 
doctrine of the Form of the Good he obviously contemplates 
a larger teleology, which would ultimately open out into the 
evolutionary point of view—the function of everything being |. 
that need on the part of the whole which has shaped it. The 
argument of the following Section is, however, more directly 
applicable to objects of external Nature than that before us. | 

33. ‘Keep the maker informed’: ‘ maker’ same Greek word 
as ‘poet,’ which gives piquancy to the argument. This para- 
graph explains very clearly what was meant by ‘ belief’ in the 
scheme of cognition, end of Book vi. It is knowledge at 
second hand, belonging to the region of likenesses or em- 
bodiments, for the single object is only a more or less im- 
perfect embodiment of its purpose, and therefore a judgment : 
adequate to it is only likely or probable, not certain. 

41. ‘Upon which the other relies,’ lit. ‘and he, dedeving, 601 E 
will make the object.’ 

345. 1. ‘Belief.’ (See note on 344. 33, 601 D.) 

4. The user of the same instrument will possess science.’ 602 A 
(See note on 344. 20, 601 C.) 

15. ‘Neither know scientifically nor entertain correct 
opinions,’ ze. he is in the region of mere likenesses or 
reflections, not likenesses of the purpose, but likenesses of 
an imperfect embodiment of the purpose. This would be 
the region of the ‘ guesswork’ or imagination of Book vi. We 
may think of a painter drawing a ship. First, there is every 
chance of his drawing it wrong, and secondly, even if he 
draws what he sees, he may fail altogether to select a model 
or a moment which display the full beauty of a ship. These 
are his two stations short of truth. ' 

22. ‘He will go on imitating,’ etc., more lit. ‘all the same, B 


Sect. 104. 


392 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


he will imitate, not knowing about each (object) in what 
respects it is good or bad; but, it would seem, he will copy 
the kind (of thing) that appears beautiful to the multitude 
who know nothing.’ Cp. 196, 2, 489 D, ‘the multitude’s 
multitudinous formule about beauty and the rest.’ Whatever 
may be our theories about idealisation or selection in art, is 
this assertion not practically true of the greater portion of our 
art-products ? 


345. 37, 602 C—347. 14, 603 B. 
Position of the imitative artist (painter in this Section, poet in 
the next) as judged of by psychology, with reference to the 


_ xational or irrational character of the mental element which he 


602 C 


appeals to. Pictorial representation embodies illusory appear- 
ances, in conflict with facts as established by rational compart- 
son. Therefore the part of the mind, the sense-perception, from 
which tt elicits tts productions, ts worthless and contradictory to 
reason. 


346. 1. ‘Objects of the same size,’ etc., more lit. ‘ the same 
magnitude does not appear equal when seen close to and at 
a distance.’ Plato’s expressions in dealing with the psycho- 
logy of perception are frequently such as we must consider 
incorrect ; nevertheless his profound interest in the subject 
shows how fully alive he was to its philosophical importance, 
and in such passages as 247. 43, 524 B, he rightly anticipates 
the line of future analysis. His principal treatment of the 
subject is in the Zheaetetus. As to the present passage, of 
course, we may misjudge the size of objects in consequence 
of the different angles that distance makes them subtend at the 
eye. But with familiar objects we do not habitually do so, 
and the difference of angle subtended—of space taken up in 
the field of vision—is by no means identical with such a 
misjudgment. If a house a mile off had the same optical 
appearance as it would have close at hand, this would be a 
contradiction. In its covering a smaller visual space there 
is no contradiction, but the effect of a condition which we 


BOOK X.. 393 


discount in judging. If we misjudge, that is owing to some 
confusion of relations, and not to the mere variation in 
optical look. Still, the latter may help to mislead us, if 
we account for it wrongly, as we often do. 

11. ‘The art of drawing,’ or representing solidity in light 
and shade. (See note, 246, 19, 523 B.) These ocular illusions 
seem all to be cases of misjudgment, though there are also 
many strange instances in which sensations are modified by 
each other in a way that cannot be called illusion, ¢g., in 
phenomena of colour-contrast, both simultaneous and succes- 
sive. The confusion of concave and convex surfaces with 
each other is a question of the interpretation of light and 
shade rather than of colour. On the whole subject those 
who are curious should read W. James’s Psychology ii. 212 ff. 
The relative part played by knowledge (or intellectual mis- 
take) and by direct reaction to stimulus in these illusions is 
now sharply disputed, and it almost seems as if in a certain 
degree the current view were returning towards that of Plato 
by attributing more to the sensuous and less to the intellectual 
factor. (See Hering, quoted Zc., 261.) 

18. ‘ Vague notions of degrees of magnitude,’ more lit. ‘so 602 D 
that there may not rule in us the apparent greater or less, 
more or heavier, but that which has calculated,’ etc. (See 
table at end of Book v1.) 

22. ‘The rational element,’ or ‘ calculative,’ as in Book Iv. E 

27. ‘It is contradicted at the same moment’ : the rendering 
would naturally run, ‘opposites appear to it at the same 
moment about the same matter,’ but as that to which they 
appear has been mentioned not as the mind but as ‘the 
reason,’ this would be stating an impossibility according to 
Plato’s view, and Davies and Vaughan avoid it. Probably 
the ‘element’ changes in Plato’s thought as the sentence goes 
on, from ‘reason’ to ‘mind’ or ‘man.’ Of course an ordi- 
nary perceived appearance is not held fast as an illusion 
against measurement, but submits to be interpreted. There 
are, however, persistent illusions which will not yield to 


i ae 

S 
394 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 
measurement, but they are usually rooted in false associa- 
tion rather than in sensuous appearance. It is enough for 
Plato’s purpose to say that the partial character of the 
sensuous appearance, with its liability to originate misjudg- 
ment by wrong selection, is enough to show that there is 
something at work in it different at least in degree from 
intelligence. 

29. ‘Entertaining—contradictory opinions.’ This is not 
said in so many words in Book 1v., but comes under the mean- 
ing of 139-40. 436-7. The same course of argument is here 
applied to distinguish intelligence from sense-perception 
nearly approaching sensation, as in Book Iv. to distinguish 
intelligence from desire. (Cp. 143. 6, 35, 439 B and D.) 

603 A 34. ‘That part of the soul whose opinions run counter to 
the measurements.’ Is the conflict of sense-perception and 
reflection really different in kind from the intellectual conflict 
of opposing endeavours to judge in a case of conflicting evi- 
dence? Probably it would be admitted to be a more striking 
case, more nearly approaching the assertion of contraries to- 
gether. The judgment of perception is so essentially partial 
that it seems to hold in spite of proof to the contrary, and we 
say, ‘we know it is not so, but it certainly looks so.’ Of course 
the persistence of different appearances, when rightly inter- 
preted to indicate different conditions, is not in opposition to 
measurement, though Plato perhaps thought it was. 

38. ‘That part which relies on calculation and measurement 
must be the best part,’ at least, it is as whole to part, and 
consequently as systematic to confused thinking. (Cp. 248. 3, 
524.) Just as desire is usually modified or suppressed by a 
larger purpose, and not stopped dead by a negative command 
as represented in Book Iv., so sensuous misjudgment is usually 
set right by interpretation and incorporation in the whole, and 
does not normally remain confronting it as irreconcilable. 
But phenomena closely resembling both these conceptions of 
Plato will take place in extreme cases, and no doubt bear 
witness to the complexity of the mind. 


BOOK X. “ 395 


347. 8. ‘Is the worthless mistress of a worthless friend.” 603 B 
See 205. 490 for the language of the love-philosophy applied 
to lofty intelligence. The mind’s union with its other self, 
which is Plato’s idea of love, is profoundly applied to the 
process of experience in its different phases. The copyist in 
art devotes himself to the least perfect form of experience, and 
his productions are accordingly (‘ Es wird auch danach).’ 

13. ‘That which addresses itself to the ear.’ Music is not 
treated ‘separately from poetry, and poetry is only classed as.an . 
art of sound. But a mere phrase of transition must not be 
emphasised. 


347. 15, 603 B—350. 14, 605 C. Sect. 105. 

So, too, the part of the mind to which imitative poetry appeals, 
and from which it draws its material, is false and worthless. 
for man ts at war with his reason in emotion as in cognition, 
and emotion hostile to reason or law, as naturally dramatic, 
ts the province of poetry, as perception hostile to measurement 
was the province of painting. Thus not only are the poet's 
creations untrue (see Section 100), but they do harm by foster- 
ing a worthless part of the soul. 

It is striking that emotion should be so especially assigned to 
poetry, and perception to painting, although, indeed, each mental 
condition ts clearly to be understood as involving the other, false 
sentiment and narrow or confused perception going naturally 
together. Sentiment—the way in which actions and situations 
are felt, and ideas—the way in which they are regarded, are 
closely connected and often hardly distinguishable. Both as a 
less immediately presentative art than painting, and as in a 
great measure an art of sound (especially when not clearly 
separated from music), it is possible that poetry has the more 
distinctly emotional character. ‘Why is sound the only sensa- 
tion that has éthos ?’ i.e. that appeals to our emotional moods ? 
Aristotle asks in his jottings of problems for inquiry. 

347. 15; ‘Do not let us rely only on the probable evidence 603 B 
derived from painting,’ more lit. ‘on the likelihood,’ ze. on the 


396 COMPANION FO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


inference depending on the likeness between painting and 
poetry, that what is true of painting is true of poetry. This 
suggests the term ‘analogy’ as a rendering of ‘ guesswork’ or 
‘going by likenesses,’ in the scheme of cognition, end of 
Book vi. Plato is proposing to make a special inquiry into 
the psychological element with which poetry deals. ‘Of the 
intellect’: the word has in itself no technical meaning, and is 
used here, no doubt, of conscious states in general. 

603 C 22. ‘Engaged in voluntary or involuntary actions.’ (See 
93-4- 399-) 

36. ‘We admitted that our soul is fraught with an infinite 
number of these simultaneous contradictions’: ‘ simultaneous,’ 
7.é. the mind having opposite impulses at the same moment. 
(See 143. 22, 439 C.) 

E 348. 4. ‘At the time’; in the earlier part of the dialogue ? 
The last reference was apparently to /.c.in Book 1Vv. : this is to 
77. 20, 387 C in Book 111. 

604 A 18. ‘When he is alone—he will venture to say much’; to 
‘say,” rather, ‘to give vent to’: the word would include in- 
articulate sounds of sorrow. The Greek word ‘venture’ has 
quite a peculiar implication in places like this. It primarily 
means ‘dare’ in the full sense, but is constantly used of moral 
or rather immoral daring, ‘having the face’ to do a thing, eg. 
in the Crito, 53 E: ‘will no one cast it up to you that being an 
old man, with probably but a short time to live, you dared to 
be so greedy of life as violate the highest laws?’ The word 
seems to imply a sort of horror naturals at the impropriety 
suggested. A Greek would betray more outward signs of 
sorrow than are usual among us; if we can trust Plutarch, 
even such a man as Solon would break out into Oriental 
gestures of lamentation on receiving tidings of his son’s 
death (Plut., So/on c. 6.); and just because of this tendency 
there was a strong feeling of the need of self-restraint, and the 
shame of being seen to give way beyond a certain point. The 
peculiar dangerinvolved in sentiment, which, because imaginary, 
escapes Criticism, is the theme of the subsequent Section. 


BOOK X.. 397 


25. ‘The affliction itself,’ lit. ‘pathos,’ that which befalls or 
affects the man. This word had not yet acquired the refer- 
ence to a peculiar quality in expression which jt now carries 
with it. 

31. ‘Is not one part of him prepared’: ‘one part of him,’ 604 B 
lit. ‘the one,’ opposite,to the other, described 349. 16 E. For 
this purpose the man is regarded in respect of two elements 
only, either omitting the ‘spirited’ element, or assuming that, 
as self-respect, it coalesces with the spirit of law inspired by 
education, ‘ eunomia,’ 123. 38, 435 A. 

36. ‘Because we cannot estimate the amount of good and 
evil,’ partly, perhaps, that our characters are being moulded 
by a process which is not pleasant, 69. 20, 380 B, partly 
that, more generally, we cannot see through the workings of 
Providence, 360. 1, 613 A. 

39. ‘None of the affairs of this life deserve very serious C 
anxiety.’ See 200. 4, 486 a and note, ‘of this life,’ lit. ‘human.’ 
The question is with what, if anything, it is contrasted, or is 
there nothing that deserves serious anxiety? ‘Two thoughts 
seem to be blended: one (see Zc.) that any particular incident 
or the fate of any individual is not enough to produce despair 
in the mind of one who generally tries to follow the march of 
the world (cp. a quotation from one of Hegel’s letters, Mind 
xiii. 146) ; secondly (as the following sentence shows), that the 
frame of mind which is troubled and upset by passing events 
is not the frame of mind which best responds to the call of 
duty. The context indicates, though the actual words com- 
mented on do not involve it, that here at least it is the enjoy- 
ment of emotion, and not the feeling which is organic to 
action, that Plato deprecates. 

349. 6. ‘Instead of hugging the wounded part,’ etc., a 
quaint bit of observation, and a criticism terribly in point 
to-day. 

ro. ‘ Putting a stop to lamentation by the aid of medicine’ ; D 
rather, surely, ‘ putting lamentation out of our heads by apply- 
ing ourselves to remedy the evil.’ 


605 A 


398 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


17. ‘Think of and grieve over,’ to keep recalling and 

lamenting over the misfortune. This clearly portrays the sort 
of temper in question—the sentimental temper which enjoys 
feeling for feeling’s sake. : 
‘21. ‘ Peevish temper,’ sensitive or sentimental, easily roused 
to feel and exhibit emotion, chiefly painful. This is a real 
difficulty in zesthetic. The amount of utterance, e.g., which is 
necessary for the conventional drama is itself in some degree 
a convention, in which mere inward thought and feeling are 
taken as revealed in speech. The bearing of a man of charac- 
ter in actual modern life would afford little material for the 
stage, and the attempt to present it realistically by refinements 
of look and gesture coupled with monosyllabic ejaculations is 
perhaps a hopeless revolt against dramatic convention. What- 
ever we may think of the Greek sculpture which we know, the 
Greek dramatist at least, though limited in the range of his 
passion, almost shocks a reader trained upon Shakespeare by 
the violence of his recriminations and the ingeniousness of 
his lamentations. The secret of tragic dignity lies not in the 
avoidance of ‘variety’ (see 293. 41, 561 £) but in the ‘ tem- 
perance and smoothness’ which Shakespeare orders the actor, 
and also, no doubt, the poet, to ‘acquire and beget’ in the 
very ‘whirlwind of passion.’ Even this Plato did not, or pro- 
fessed that he did not, appreciate ; but also, of course, there- 
falls rightly under his condemnation the whole mass of morbid 
sentimentalism which is invented simply for the stage and for 
the sentiment-loving audience, and has no place in literature 
because it has no greatness of character. 

28. ‘Is far from being their own,’ ze. if a simple and 
dignified character is put on the stage. 

31. ‘ Nothing to do with this (calm) temper of soul.’ On 
the whole, as people imitate what they admire, so they admire 
what they are able to respond to. So the temper which the 
poet represents is also in the main the temper he appeals to ; 
and needing dramatic material, he is forced to represent the 
changeful (‘ various’) temper. 


BOOK X. 399 


39. ‘In producing things that are worthless,’ (See Section- 
heading.) 

42. ‘Which is like himself’; rather, ‘which is also worth- 
less,’ because it opposes law and reason. 

350. 8. ‘Implants an evil constitution.’ (See 332. 22, 590 E.) 605 B 

g. ‘ By gratifying that senseless part.’ For good and evil, 
all imitate what they enjoy, and grow to be like what aie 
imitate, 219. 4, 500 c and 88. 39, 395 c. 

11. ‘Regards the same things now as great and now as C 
small.’ Cp., perhaps, the account of relative pleasure, 321. ff.,: 
583 ff., for the meaning of this on emotional ground. 

12. ‘Manufactures fantastic phantoms.’ Cp. Silas Marner, 
‘“Tt’s perhaps Mr. Snell’s bull got out again, as he did before.” 

**¢T wish he mayn’t gore anybody, then, that’s all,” said Jane, 
not altogether despising a hypothesis which covered a few 
imaginary calamities.’ By connection with silly fancies and 
fictitious occasions for emotion, and with false lights on life in 
general, the account of sentimentalism is closely linked with 
the account of ‘phantoms’ or shadows as the lowest cognitive 
stage in the allegory of the Cave. 


350. 14, 605 C—352. 3, 606 D. Sect. 106. 


Poetical presentation feeds the sentimental mood by an in- 
dulgence which is unguarded just because ideal or imaginary. 


350. 26. ‘Sympathise with the sufferer.’ (See 174. 21, 464 D D 
and note.) There the word was ‘share in one feeling,’ ze. feel 
the pain or pleasure of members in the same organised self. 
Here the word is ‘feel with,’ closely corresponding to our 
word ‘sympathise,’ and it is used, apparently, of the mere 
contagion of a feeling which being in one individual tends to 
repeat itself in another without relation to common aims or a 
common life, a process which is not, like the other, moral, and 
according to Plato is morally hazardous. It is very important 
to note that our word ‘sympathy’ ranges between these two 
very different meanings. 

351. 13. ‘ Relaxes in its watch over this querulous part.’ The 606 A 


400 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


effect of the imaginary character of what is presented is 
analogous to that of solitude, 348. 18, 604 a; the restraints of 
actual life are thrown off. This is a very acute comment on 
the dangers of imagination when we think it safe to let our- 
selves go; but there is another side to the question, see note 
on 38. 

606 B 17. ‘The conduct of other people,’ ze. in giving way to 
grief. ‘Influence’ = ‘we must be infected by it,’ same word 
as 88.39, 395 ¢. 

C 33. ‘Adopting the character of a comic poet’: a rhetorical 
climax, with a mixture of humour and horror. Plato in some 
moods was plainly inclined to ascribe the odium which was 
finally fatal to Socrates to the influence of Aristophanes (see 
Apology, 18 D), although Aristophanes appears as a friend in 
the Symposium. On the moral danger of excessive laughter 
see 79. 15, 388 D. 

D 38. ‘Waters and cherishes.’ Plato’s general principle is that 
what is exercised is fostered ; the act makes the habit, and 
imitation, or what we enter into, becomes second nature. As 
against the two main principles of this discussion on represen- 
tative art there are obvious objections, which may be indi- 
cated by a reference to Aristotle’s theory. 

1. As against the view that the representative artist is 
essentially a reproducer of commonplace reality (see 339. 19, 
598 A), Plato’s ‘second production from truth,’ the product 
that the workman makes, or (we may expand) that the vulgar 
eye sees in nature, Aristotle observes that ‘ poetry is more 
serious and more scientific than history’ (which includes, no 
doubt, ‘natural history’). It is Plotinus, however, a neo- 
Platonist of the third century a.p., who finally enunciates the 
modern position by declaring that the arts do not simply 
imitate the visible, but go back to the laws or harmonies from 
which nature comes. This complete reversal of Plato’s real 
or assumed attitude is even more trenchantly expressed by 
Schiller, when he says that man is not civilised till he has 
learnt to prefer the semblance to the reality. Plato’s own 


BOOK X. 401 


doctrine of symbolism, which made the whole world a gradu- 
ated embodiment of law and reality, pointed forward to such 
conclusions as these, which he even applied to beauty as such, 
and, in his educational theory and analysis of pleasure, to 
non-representative art. His view was, in part at least, a 
reductio ad absurdum of current criticism, and a criticism on 
the copyist tendency, which at all times makes itself felt in art. 

i. As against the view that solicitation of emotion by 
imaginary presentation can only foster the emotion solicited, 
Aristotle advances the celebrated purgation theory, which, 
without vouching for absolute accuracy, we may fairly indi- 
cate as the conception of a safety-valve. It is both pleasur- 
able and wholesome, he maintains, to ‘let yourself go’ on 
certain occasions ; the tendency to emotion is thus relieved, 
and the emotional forces lose their mischievous character. 
How far, and in what sense, this and his former suggestion 
lend themselves to combination is an interesting question of 
eesthetic theory. (See the editor’s Ast. of 4isthetic, pp. 66-7.) 


352, 4, 606 E—354. 2, 608 B. , Sect, 107. 


Then so far from thinking that Homer is a supreme authority 
on education, politics, and morals, we must not admit him into 
our community at all, and in this hostility we only maintain an 
old feud between science and poetry. But if any other justifica- 
tion for representative art (than its didactic value) can be 
shown, we will welcome tt. And in any case, we have learnt 
how to read poetry, that is to say, not to treat it as a serious 
vehicle of knowledge and morality, but to bear in mind that it is 
of the nature of illusion, and be on our guard against receiving 
et otherwise. 

We might illustrate these ideas by applying them to the use of 
the Bible, though the cases, of course, are not closely parallel. 
We too have those who think that the Bible is the supreme 
authority on all matters of life, and those who think that it is 
full of error and opposed to science, some of whom (though few) 

2C 


402 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


might be found to say that tt ts not worth using at all, and 
lastly, those who think that the chief thing ts to know from 
what point of view to study it. 


607 A 352. 16. ‘The highly-seasoned muse of lyric or epic 
poetry,’ lit. ‘the sweetened muse.’ Aristotle applies the same 
epithet to distinguish (probably) verse from prose in defining 
tragedy. 

- €Of lyric,’ etc., or ‘in lyric.’ The hymns which were to be 
admitted were surely lyric, and in general, lyric poetry was 
more at home in the non-democratic communities of Greece 
than tragedy. 

B 28. ‘A quarrel of long standing.’ We have the attacks of 
Heraclitus and Xenophanes upon the poets (see the frag- 
ments in Burnet), but little of the rejoinder, unless we count 
the Clouds of Aristophanes. In Laws, xii. 967, expressions. 
similar to these are mentioned, as applied by the poets to 
philosophers (presumably Anaxagoras and his followers) who 
denied the divinity of the heavenly bodies. 

353. 16. ‘ We shall be gainers, I presume, if poetry can be 
proved to be profitable.’ This need not be taken as mere 
irony. Plato was well aware that thought had _possibili- 
ties beyond his immediate horizon, and that especially his 
psychology was a defective instrument of research (138. 4, 
435 C): 

608 A 28. ‘We must not make a serious pursuit of such poetry, in 
the belief that it grasps truth and is good’: ‘good ’= ‘serious’ 
or ‘worthy,’ the word of which Aristotle uses the comparative 
in saying, ‘ poetry is more serious and scientific (philosophic) 
than research into fact’ (history). In denying this predi- 
cate of poetry, Plato undoubtedly goes a long way towards 
affirming its utter triviality ; but still we must bear in mind 
the drift of the superstition which he had to encounter (see 
beginning of the present Section), and which for him coloured 
the meaning of ‘good’ or ‘worthy’ by didactic ideas. We 
are ‘to be on our guard,’ ‘to take care,’ not to forget we are 


BOOK X. 403 


dealing with shadows: this seems to be what he desires to 
insist on. 

36. “Involves a great stake,’ leading up to the argument 608 B 
for immortality. 


354. 3, 608 C—357. 21, 611 A. Sect.108. 


What is at stake is not a single life, but all time, for our soul 
ts tmmortal and indestructible. For the disintegration of any 
being can only proceed from an evil that attacks it, not from one 
that attacks something else. Now the evil that attacks the soul 
is wickedness, and this does not produce the dissolution of the 
soul, nor ts tt espectally traceable at times when (if the soul 
perished at what we call death) it would be approaching its 
dissolution. But the evils of the body, as such, are by the hypo- 
thesis confined to attacking the body, and are not found in 
experience to set up the characteristic evil of the soul. Therefore 
there is no evil that can dissolve the soul, and it is indestructible. 

This argument may be said to take up the contention of the 
Phaedo from page 106 B, before which the essential opposition 
between death and the soul (which is principle of life) has been 
exhibited by terming the soul immortal, in the sense of deathless, 
i.e. in that it cannot die and yet remain a soul. But whether 
it perishes at the onset of death, or is indestructible as well as 
deathiless, is a question there suggested, but not fully discussed. 
It is hardly, perhaps, one of the ‘first hypotheses’ left over as 
needing additional examination (107 B), but seems to receive it 
here. The substance of the present argument is closely akin to 
that of the criticism there directed against the conception of the 
soul as a music depending on the adjustment of the bodily ele- 
ments. It ultimately rests on the difference between sin and 
disease. A soul, however sinful, is yet a soul (or life) as much 
as the most righteous, whereas a music or ‘harmony’ ceases to 
be music in as far as the adjustments fail on which it depended. 
Tf souls were the music of bodies, all would have to be equally 
righteous, for if not, they would be more and less of souls, as the 


404 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


bodily adjustment varied, and that (very suggestive) alternative 
ts ruled out. 

Lt is a common and attractive modern idea to think of the 
wicked as diseased, or as in a low phase of vitality, and 
Plato's conception of Justice as harmony and organisation 
(34-5. 351-2, aud I51. 445) seems to lend itself to the notion 
that wickedness may be looked on as a disintegration and dissolu- 
tion, of the soul. But the facts on which Plato relies here and in 
the Phaedo demand attention. Health and goodness, disease and 
wickedness, are, after all, different things for daily observation. 
The difference may be ultimately one of degree, but it is practi- 
cally immeasurable. Sickness may lower the intellectual force, 

but it quite as often purifies as impairs the character. Wrong- 
doing and selfishness may be hostile to survival in the long run, 
but they cannot precisely be equated with a tendency to shorten 
life. Even insanity ts perplexingly compatible with apparent 
bodily health. It is a mistake of principle absolutely to deny 
Plato’s position that a bad soul may be completely a soul—a 
Jully endowed human being. We must not try to reduce wicked- 

_ness to the type of defective evolution. There is such a thing as 
perverseness and rebellion, and these are not the same as psycho- 
physical inferiority, though ultimately the bad self can never 
have the same unity as the good. The psychological problem of 
soul and body ts, of course, still sub judice. 


608C 354. 11. ‘Compared to eternity.’ We must be very careful 
throughout this discussion to distinguish Plato’s conceptions 
from our own. Comparing 216. 35, 498 p, and the myth, we 
see that this does not necessarily mean a personal survival for 
ever in another world, but the fate and future of unending 
lives not connected with our own by any link of conscious 
individuality. 

18. ‘Is immortal, and never dies,’ lit. ‘and is never 
destroyed,’ which makes the connection with the argument 
of the Phaedo. (See Section-heading.) 

E 32. ‘Everything that destroys and corrupts.’ So we should 


BOOK X. 405 


expect from the whole account of justice, and therefore the 
drift of the argument rather takes us by surprise. 

355. 6. ‘Its own connatural evil and vice.’ Of course this 609 A 
stage of the argument assumes the dualism of soul and body, 
but it hardly begs the question, as the assumption really rests 
on the observed difference of wickedness and disease. 

42. The depravity of another thing.’ Here again the gist of D 
the argument lies in the distinction of the two depravities. 
If you allege that disease destroys the soul, what place have 
you left for wickedness ? 

356. 13. ‘ Without the introduction of its own native evil’; 610 A 
of course quite true of an organism. Infection, e.g., may or 
may not find in the body a condition favourable to it. The 
organism may, however, be attacked in more or less organic 
ways, 7.¢. its mechanical conditions may be destroyed by 
violence instead of a detrimental growth being set up within 
it. So the mind may be attacked through its bodily condi- 
tions as well as in what we calla relatively direct manner, as 
by temptation. Cp. the story of the prisoner who was drugged 
with atropine in order to shatter the resolution with which he 
concealed his comrades’ names. 

29. ‘ Becomes more unjust and unholy.’ It is possible, of B 
course, in certain cases to show that a bodily ailment is con- 
nected with intellectual and even moral deterioration. But 
character has extraordinary powers of resistance, though intel- 
lect is clouded with comparative ease. 

357. 8. ‘It endows its possessor with peculiar vitality.’ This E 
is in a somewhat lighter and more superficial tone, than, ¢.g., 
the account of the voluptuary’s soul. Perhaps it is worth 
noticing that the remark is not assigned to Socrates. Still, 
from an everyday point of view, the fact is as alleged, and 
Plato may have meant to supplement the ideal account of 
the voluptuary and the absolutely wicked who is absolutely 
weak (35. 33, 352 C) by a view more adapted to the sphere 
of picture-thinking and the unphilosophic consciousness, to 
which the myth and the insistence on endless temporal dura- 


611A 


Sect. 109. 


406 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


tion belong. Just so, we shall see that the myth attempts to 
portray the freedom of the will by referring it to a single act 
of choice at a point in time. These pictures reproduce the 
‘fact,’ the first impression, which it is the duty of philosophy 
to analyse. 

20. ‘ Always existing and therefore immortal.’ This infer- 
ence imposes a restriction on the meaning of what is inferred. 
If immortal only in the sense in which it is always existent, the 
soul plainly has not the continued personal consciousness 
which is principally interesting to us. 


357. 22, 611 A—358, 41, 612 A. 

- Corollaries from the eternity of the soul. The number of souls 

cannot alter, and moreover, the soul as we have examined it, 
being composite and even discordant, cannot be the soul in its 
eternal nature. To understand this we should have to look at 
it as intelligence, and to trace its affinity with the real and the 
divine; and then we should know whether it includes more 
kinds than one, or not. 

This passage exhibits a conception of the soul remote from that 
conveyed by the image of the composite creature in Book IX. 
But, as we saw, that image deals rather with the psychical 
material than with a formed moral self. How far Plato 
would have admitted that, in completing its unity, the embodied 
soul, with its emotions and affections, might attain to what he 
conceived as its simple or undiscordant nature, we cannot tell. 
The natural interpretation of the present passage, to a mind 
charged with popular mysticism, undoubtedly suggests that the 
real nature of the soul lies in a simplicity to be attained not by 
unification but by abstraction. But tf we press upon this line of 
thought, and observe the extreme uncertainty of Plato's language, 
we shall be carried beyond popular mysticism in yet another 
direction. Apart from body and personal affections it is hard 
to conceive of individual immortality. And in thinking of the 
real and divine affinities of mind we are brought on the track 
of the human intelligence as portrayed in the Timaeus, a spark 


BOOK X. 407 


of universal reason enclosed in the complex personality of man. 
This again points forward to the conception of Aristotle, accord- 
ing to which the active intelligence—the organising spirit—is 
eternal and indestructible, but the receptive mind, the memory 
and personality, are perishable and do not survive the body. If 
we suppose that Plato is here on some such path (and it is plain 
throughout that consciousness is not for him as for us the funda- 
mental character of mind) we are still not debarred from assum- 
ing what, indeed, the Timaeus fells us, that within the human 
or moral self the soul realises its nature in as far as tt achieves 
simplicity in the sense of organic unity. 


28. ‘ Everything would finally be immortal.’ Same argument 611 A 
(Phaedo, 72 B) reversed, but in more general form. ‘If all things 
went the same way from life to death, and there was no return 
movement, all would finally have the same form and condition, 
and life would come to an end’; or, ‘if all things came together 
and nothing tended to separate, chaos would result.’ 

33- ‘The soul in its essential nature,’ lit. ‘in its truest B 
nature’; there is no suggestion of an essential as against an 
unessential parz. 

34. ‘ Viewed by itself.’ I do not think this is right; there 
is again no suggestion of a separation between one part and 
another; it is, surely, ‘(cannot) teem with—disagreement, 
itself towards itself’; ze. with inward contradiction, as 
described in Books Iv., vill., and Ix. 

37. ‘Eternal, as we have just proved the soul to be’; 
surely not, although Jowett agrees. The order and the 
whole context require ‘if compounded, and that not in the 
best way, as in our present discussion it was shown to be.’ 
Cp. Phaedo, 77-9, on which place it is important to note that 
Plato is arguing just against the primitive superstition with 
which many would confound his view. ‘You are afraid,’ 
Socrates says, ‘like children, that when the soul leaves the 
body the wind will blow it apart and disperse it, especially if 
one dies not on a calm day but in a heavy gale.’ This refers 


408 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


to the Homeric metaphor by which the departing ghost is 
likened to a wreath of smoke, Phaedo, 70 a, and so ‘spiritual’ 
thought often appears to construe immateriality as thinness 
of matter. It is as a rebuke to this way of thinking that Plato 
admits some souls to be spectres or phantoms, namely, those 
which are loaded with material inclinations, zd¢d. 81 c. 
‘Not compounded in the best way’; probably refers to its 
internal discord. It zs a sort of compound in the Zimaeus. 
611C 358. 8. ‘Unsullied purity.’ The rendering pursues the 
idea of a sort of angel soul, probably an altogether false 
track. ‘What it is like when you get it pure (¢e. by itself) 
must be adequately scrutinised by reasoning’; this is very 
like an anticipation of part of the problem of the Zimaeus. 
E 26. ‘In virtue of its close connection with the divine,’ 
more lit. its ‘kinship,’ or ‘affinity with.’ 
612A 34. ‘Essentially multiform.’ In the Zimaeus it is in a 
sense multiform. An isolated quotation from the Ztmaeus 
would hardly be intelligible, but I extract a passage which 
may be suggestive from the late Mr. R. L. Nettleship’s review 
of Mr. Archer Hind’s Zimaeus, Mind xiv. 132: ‘Plato (in 
the Zimaeus, 35 A) makes soul arise from the union of 
divisible and indivisible substance+sameness and difference. 
We seem to have a clue to his meaning when he comes to 
describe the activity or ‘movement’ of soul. He describes 
the movement as circular, returning into itself, and this 
circular movement he represents as having two forms, that of 
sameness and that of difference. In other words, sameness 
and difference are the elementary forms of discursive thought 
(cp. 40 A and 44 A) to which all judgments are ultimately 
reducible, and in the consciousness of which the substance 
of soul moves eternally out of and into itself.’ The soul thus 
constituted is immortal, and some of it is in the human 
mind; but in this there is also a mortal soul, consisting 
of the passions and affections, while sensation is a shock 
transmitted by the body to the soul (Zimacus, 43, 69). 
Thus the immortal soul would be the intelligent character 


BOOK X. 409 


which mind recognises in itself and in the world, and which 
is taken as an eternal law of the universe. 


358. 42, 612 A—36I. 9, 613 E. Sect. 110. 


The eternal consequences of right and of wrong-doing must 
be recognised, as to divorce seeming from being was only a 
(forced) hypothesis for the sake of argument. 


359. 21. ‘Still this ought to be granted for the sake of the 612 C 
argument.’ See the entire addresses of Glaucon and Adei- 
mantus, especially 44, 6, 361 E, and 51. 367. It was an ille- 
gitimate hypothesis to separate the consequences of law and 
order from their existence, and in fact has absolutely been 
disregarded in the analysis of social happiness and misery. 

30. ‘Which she earns by her outward appearances.’ The D 
seeming cannot as a matter of principle be disjoined from the 
reality; it is, in fact, a part of it, as the act is of the will. 
Morality is not merely inward. (See 8, 332-3 and 149. 443.) 

37. ‘That the gods at least are not mistaken.’ The E 
superstitious doctrines of the poets and popular theologians 
(49. 365-6) are treated as swept away by the criticism to 
which the didactic value of poetry has been subjected. 

360. 1. ‘All things which come from the gods.’ It is 613A 
hard to say how far this is a limiting condition. (See 68. 14, 
379 C.) 

3. ‘Unless some past sin’; the doctrine of the myth. In 
a less mystical form we all understand that the sin of one life 
influences those which come after. 

8. ‘For his final advantage.’ Is this a doctrine of com- 
pensation or of discipline? The same question might be 
asked about the saying, ‘all things work together for good 
to them that love God.’ The two interpretations run into 
each other. The root-feeling of the frame of mind is that 
there is a good in the course of life greater than we can see. 

32. ‘Then will you suffer me to say of them what you said 


of the unjust?’ See 44-45. 362. 


Sect.111. 


410 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


361. 10, 614 a—End of dialogue. 


The imagery of the myth follows strangely upon Plato's 
criticism of poetic imagination. It may be noted that by 
adopting the narrative form he distinguishes his ‘lawless and 
uncertain thought’ from his serious discussions (cp. Phaedo, 
114 D), and thus observes the condition which he has more than 
once laid down for the use of the imagination, that he who deals 
with tt must know with what he ts dealing (see 335. 18, 595 B, 
353. 32, 608 A). Zhe symbolism or anthropomorphism which 
creeps into the statement of his most essential ideas, as in the 
details of the city of the perfect, the gold and iron races, the 
deception used by the rulers, the philosophic king, the failure to 
hit the right birth times, or again the vast imagery of the creative 
process in the 'Timaeus, stands on a somewhat different footing, 
and, although the interpreter must allow for it, does not so 
definitely indicate a reservation confessed by the author himself. 
The first point in the myth that strikes a modern reader ts the 
idea of retribution. Plato is the first Greek writer from 
whom we have a detailed picture of this idea, which, as Cephalus 
tells us, had long been a sort of popular nightmare, having 
practical influence only as death approached (see 5. 10, 330 D). 
The references to it in the Odyssey appear all to be additions of 
unknown date. (For the growth of a similar conception in 
LFlebrew thought, during the exile and later, see article ‘ Escha- 
tology, Encycl. Britannica). Both here and in the Phaedo 
eternal punishment ts predicted only for the incurable, among 
whom, with reference to the argument of the dialogue, the 
despots here take the principal place, though the Phaedo does 
not allude to them. There are probably Dantesque references 
in the crimes enumerated, but the scheme of the myth forbids any 
mention of persons in recent memory. All other retribution 
ts partly purification. In the Republic, which herein differs 
Jrom the Phaedo, there is no suggestion of eternal felicity, tn the 
sense of freedom from re-incarnation. The whole stress ts 


BOOK X. 411 


laid on the wise choice of life, which is the only path to 
happiness. 

The myth is based on the doctrine of metempsychosis, which 
was known to Herodotus, and quite possibly had an Oriental 
source. But in fact it is a primitive notion implying close kin- 
ship between man and animals, and the important point is the 
way in which Plato spiritualises tt by introducing the distinc- 
tively ethical conception of a free choice of life conditioned only 
by the soul’s own experience and wisdom. Thus here, as 
throughout Books If. and III., he breaks with primitive 
superstition, for he refuses to regard re-incarnation either as 
a mere natural necessity or as a punishment, but treats it as 
an occaston on which judgment and character reveal themselves 
in a supreme decision. On metempsychosis, see Burnet, p. 
100 ff. Herodotus (ii. 123) has heard of it as a natural 
necessity, according to which the soul assumes all animal 
Sorms in rotation. Empedocles speaks of it as a punishment. 
(See fragment in Burnet, p. 233.) The immortality which 
Flerodotus was told of as a doctrine of Zalmoxis was dif- 
Jerent, more like the Valhalla of the northern nations (Hat. 
iv. 95). 

The relation of the choice to necessity is very remarkable. 
Virtue is supposed not to be assigned in the allotment, and to be 
compatible with any lot, though in almost the same words it ts 
proclaimed that the responsibility rests with the chooser (cp. in 
Odyssey i. the words of Zeus: ‘men blame us and say that evils 
come from us ; but they too of themselves by their own folly have 
troubles more than ts fated’), implying, what ts clearly the case, 
that the choice once made determines character for the future, as 
it is itself determined by the character and experience of the past. 
The reign of law in Nature is typified by the revolutions of the 
heavens on the knees of Necessity (contrast the Homeric expres- 
sion ‘all this lies on the knees of the gods’), and the choice, when 
made, is ratified by this supreme order (Atropos=‘ unturning’), 
and, so to speak, becomes part of it. The one ‘free’ act of choice, 


412 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


then, recurring at intervals of more than a thousand years (the 
sum of the whole intermediate life) is a mere image of the daily 
responsibility of the human soul condensed into a point of time. 
It never really escapes from Necessity, but Necessity is for Plato 
not hostile to freedom, the true opposite to which ts slavery (see 
Book IX.). 

The description of the heavens has the kind of inconsistency 
which belongs to a fairy tale, in which things too vast to be 
brought into a picture are nevertheless seen or handled by a 
person in the story, as Thor tried to lift a cat, which was really 
the great earth-serpent that holds the earth together. The 
whorls of the spindle are the turning heavens, not exactly 
pictured as spheres. It would be strange if the fateful doctrine 
of spheres, as material shells one within the other, really drew its 
origin from this fairy tale. In the Timaeus, 38, where Plato's 
science 1s more serious, they are not mentioned. 

The account of the passage of the river Forgetfulness seems to 
imply that something was to be gained by temperance shown in 
not drinking to the full; presumably this is a last trace of the 
‘recollection’ doctrine, according to which knowledge would be 
more easily won in proportion as ante-natal impressions re- 
mained distinct. Butas the choice has now determined the soul's 
Juture and tts character, there seems no room for real emphasis 
upon this matter. It will be seen, then, that the immortality on 
which Plato lays stress in the Republic zs not ultimately a per- 
sonal continuance, the next terrestrial life having no more 
conscious relation to the present than the present has to the 
last. That the life of every human being has incalculable 
influence on the lives of those who come after, not merely by a 
tradition of respectability and inoffensiveness, but by bequeathing 
a high standard of thought, the sole means of meeting new con- 
ditions without risk of moral disaster (368, 10, 619 D) seems to 
be the meaning through which, under the veil of compensation tn 
a future life, Plato extends his conception of righteousness to 
include a duty to unborn generations. 


“BOOK X. 413 


362. 1. ‘The unjust were ordered.’ This dichotomous 614 C 
distinction between good and bad must belong, one would 
suppose, to the mythical form. If we look at the dialogue as 
a whole, who would be good and who bad according to its — 
principles? Would any of the existing human race, except 
one or two philosophers, be saved? It has been pointed out 
that the annihilation-doctrine of Epicurus was welcome to the 
world partly because of the narrow limits set to salvation by 
current theory (Wallace; Lecture on Epicurus). Inthe Phaedo 
a middle state is recognised, 113 D. 

36. ‘Betrayed and enslaved cities and armies’: ‘enslaved’ 615 B 
opens a wide category for Greek generals, unless it is to be 
taken strictly with ‘betrayed’ as a result of treason. Even 
Grote’s hero, Callicratidas, who said he would not sell into 
slavery the citizens of Methymna, had no compunction as 
regarded the Athenian garrison (Xen. Hedi. i. 6, 15), whom he 
sold on the following day. There is no mention of these par- 
ticular crimes in the Paedo, nor of tyrants. The subject of 
the Republic is a sufficient reason for the difference. 

39. ‘Those who had done any charitable acts’; or, ‘if they 
had done’; were those who passed under the earth to receive 
reward for any good they might have done? In the Phaedo 
the people of average lives are both purged by chastisement 
and rewarded for good deeds (113 D). The absolute alter- 
native of Protestant Christianity has a far more awful signi- 
ficance than a theory of this latter kind. 

42. ‘Whose death followed close upon their birth.’ (Cp. C 
Verg. Aen. vi. 426, Dante, Zuferno iv. 30.) 

363. 16. ‘The greater part had been despots.’ According D 
to the context the special crime of Ardiaeus was parricide and 
fratricide, not treason to a city. Cp. 309. 574 and 304. 569 
(where ‘ parricide,’ of course, is metaphorical). 

366. 2. ‘The outermost rim of the distaff.’ The Greek words 617 C 
commonly said to=‘ distaff’ and ‘spindle’ appear to be inter- 
changed in parts of this passage, e¢.g., Glakaté=spindle, 365. 


414 COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


16, 616 £ But we must not interchange the English terms. 
The distaff never revolves; it is a stick which is held, in 
spinning, under the left arm, and carries the flax to be spun. 
The spindle hangs from it. I do not think the picture can be 
constructed, but if there is any reality at all in the image of 
spinning with distaff and spindle, the spindle must be vertical. 
The light, being like a column, is also vertical, so that it 
would almost seem that the spindle must be in it. But I 
have no confidence in any interpretation of the passage. 
617D__ to. ‘The maiden Lachesis.’ Lachesis =‘ allotment.’ 

E15. ‘Shall be his irrevocably,’ lit. ‘of necessity.’ ‘ Virtue 
owns no master,’ etc. (See following note.) 

618B 32. ‘No settled character of soul was included in them.’ 
Plato seems to indicate a contrast between character and 
circumstances, the latter being absolutely fixed by the choice 
of ‘life,’ but the former, though necessarily modified by the 
latter, being yet capable of more or less excellence (cp. ‘lives 
strenuously,’ 367. 38, 619 B). The description of the ‘lives,’ 
which are objects of the choice, includes no directly moral 
quality. But in the nature of the case a course of life involv- 
ing conduct cannot be pre-determined without pre-determining 
character, and the words cited really convey the opposite of 
what they profess to assert. 

D 367. 19. ‘Giving the name of evil to the life which,’ the 
principle of distinction between good and bad repeated for 
the third time. Cp. above, 149. 29, 443 E, and 330. 41, 
589 p. First the standard was the organisation of the soul 
as a harmony of principles suggested by the order of society 
and corresponding to the conception of social duty ; secondly, 
it was stated as the maintenance of what is human and divine 
in man, in its due superiority to the animal or bestial element 
in him; and here it is the concentration of these ideas, indi- 
cated by the term justice, in a conception of life as a whole, 
with all its incidents and capacities, such as to be a reliable 
guide in choosing the better and refusing the worse through- 


BOOK X. 415 


out all alternatives that can be presented (cp. 261. 13, 534 B). 
The one choice with its unending consequences is obviously 
a pictorial symbol for the unending consequences of the choice 
between higher and lower which accompanies every moment 
of waking life. 

368. 11. ‘And hence a measure of virtue had fallen to his 619 C 
share.’ Cp. 244. 32, 522 A; this and the following lines form 
a very important criticism on mere social morality, in which 
the intelligence has never really been awake. It has no 
principles, but only custom, and is unequal to a new situa- 
tion. Thus the only way of escaping a constant to and fro 
of goodness after discipline and folly after happiness is to 
lay hold on reality through the exercise of intelligence, and so 
enter on an upward road which does not turn back. (See 
370. 16, 621 C.) 

369. 5. ‘The soul of Atalanta.’ Atalanta and Epeus, 620 B 
perhaps accidentally, illustrate the participation of man and 
woman in the same capacities, 161. 42, 455 D. It is clear 
throughout that character is fate. If not, indeed, there would 
be no meaning in preparation, throughout life, for the great 
act of choice. Cp. the remarkable statement, 22 D, which 
approximates to the idea of metempsychosis as_punish- 
ment. 

26. The Destiny he had chosen,’ lit. ‘the daemon’ or E 
‘Genius,’ the same word as ‘destiny’ in the speech of 
Lachesis ; so Phaedo, 107 D. It is a symbol representative 
of character as destiny. The choice is portrayed as generat- 
ing a necessity which binds subsequent life. Of course this 
is true of every choice, and also that it springs out of a neces- 
sity. The question of moral freedom is not one of escape 
from necessity, but of escape from slavery. 

41. ‘Those who are not preserved by prudence.’ Appa- 621 A 
rently a suggestion of the doctrine of anamnesis or pre-natal 
recollection, but one hardly sees how the greater or less 
degree of forgetfulness can now do harm or good. For 


416 COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


anamnesis, which has very great psychological interest, as 
assimilating the whole process of knowledge to the pheno- 
mena of reproductive association, see Phaedo, 73 ff., especially 
76 A, where the terms contiguity (as a verb) and similarity 
occur, though not, perhaps, as in connection with distinct 
‘laws of association.’ 

C 370. 16. The upward road.’ See note on 368. 11, 619 C. 


INDEX 


Reff. to Davies and Vaughan’s Transl., as . 
», to marginal pages, as 


», to Companion, as 


A 


Accuracy, the greatest desired, for 
the most important study, 224. 
504, 237. 

Acoustics, physical, discussion on, 
256-7. 530-1, 294 See also 
Harmony. 

Adeimantus takes part in the dis- 
cussion on justice, 45. 362-3, 50-1. 
366-7, 57. 371. 

doubts the happiness of the 
guardians, II'7. 419-20. 

“tischylus misrepresents the 
haviour of the gods, 69. 380, 71. 
381, 73 383, 83. 391. 

—— gives an account of the cave- 
dweller’s life, 263-4. 

Affection, personal, connection of, 
with esthetic emotion, 98-9. 402- 
3, 109. 

Age, consideration of, in choice of 
guardians, 267-8. 539, 118, 303. 
deference shown to, by Greeks, 

192-8. 
Alcibiades, references to, 226. 








Allegory of the den. See Den, 
allegory of the. 
Alliances. See Marriage. 


Altruism, Socrates’ and Thrasy- 
machus’, 58-4. 

Analogy, argument from, 31-2. 349- 
50, 59-60. 

—— law of, examined, 159. 453, 
177-81. 


be-. 





224. 
504. 
2387. 


Animal World. See World, the 
animal. 

Appetite, as distinct from emotion, 
160-1. 

—— and avarice, connection be- 
tween, 283. 554, 328. 

Appetites, the necessary and the 
unnecessary, 289-90. 558-9, 325, 
331-3. 

—— nature and number of the, 
305-7. 571-3, 3438. See also De- 
stre and Pleasures. 

Arguments on the comparison of 
the good and the unreasonable 
lives, 313-327. 577-587, 348-366. 

Aristocracy, characteristics of, 152. 
445, 172. See also Czty, the 
pattern. 

Aristotle, his summary of pre-Pla- 
tonic philosophy, 8-9. 

—— his criticism of Plato’s com- 
munism, 21-5. 

—— his explanation of the distinc- 
tive function of man, 66-7. 

—— relation of goodness to happi- 
ness in, 69-70. 

—— his views respecting gymnastic 
training, 110. 

—— his definition of nature, 170. 

—— his conception of social pos- 
sibilities, 172-3. 

his account of the theoretic 
life, 272-3. 

——his indebtedness to Plato, 
812-3. 





2D 


418 


Arithmetic, the first science of the 
second education, 245-50. 522-6, 
277-85. 

Art, Plato’s comprehensive view of, 


—— singleness of purpose of, 26. 
345, 52, 55-7. 

—— of wages, 26-7. 346, 56. 

imitative, 303. 568, 341, 335- 
45- 595-602, 380-92, 347- 603, 
395-6, 349. 604-5, 397-9. 

Artist. See Lmitator. 

Arts, the three groups of the prac- 
tical, 299. 

Ascent towards the Form of the 
Good, method of, 243-5. 521 2, 
274-7. 

Asclepius, the wisdom of his treat- 
ment, 102-5. 405-6. See also 





Valetudinarianism. 
Astronomy, the fourth science of 
the second education, 252-6. 


527-30, 287-93, 

Athens, conditions of the downfall 
of, 1-3. 

- —— allusion to, as a tyrant city, 35. 
352, 62. 

Auxiliaries, conditions of the life 
of, 113. 414, 115-6. 416-7, 122-3, 
175-6. 465-6, 192-3, 179-80. 
468-9, 195. See also Guardians. 

Avarice, as equivalent to sensuality, 
138. 435-6, 318. 580-1, 325. 


B 


Barbarians, the treatment of, 181-4. 
469-71, 196. Seealso Civilisa- 
tion. 

Beauty, the dependence of, on char- 
acter, 104-9. 

—the relation to reality of the 
highest conceivable, 200. 

——as distinguished from that 
which is beautiful, 207-9. 

Being and existing, distinction be- 
tween, 210. 

— and becoming, distinction be- 
tween, 274-6, 283, 301. 

Belief, the third mental state, 234. 
511, 261. 





COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


Blindness, comparison of, 
ignorance, 197. 484. 

Body, relation of, to the soul, 98-9. 
402-3, 108-10, 115, 325. 585, 
362. 

—— health and disease of, 110, 115, 
Ior. 404 150. 444, 169, 192, 


with 


354°5- “9. 
Bridle, the, of Theages, 213. 496, 
228. 


Cc 


Calculation, a distinct psychological 
element in the soul, 159. See 
also Element, the philosophic. 

Calculus, the hedonistic, 28-9. 348, 
58, 328-9. 587-9, 367-8. 

Canons of Theology. See Zheology, 
canons of. 

Causation at the root of Plato’s 
symbolism, 241. 

Cause, the final, argument from 
conception of, 35-8. 352-4. 63-8. 
See also Function, Nature, Pur- 
pose. 

Cave. See Den. 

Cephalus anticipates the conclu- 
sions of philosophy, 2-6, 328-31, 
38-40, 

Change, best things or minds least 
liable to, 70-1. 381, 91-2. 

—— instyle of music, and system of 
gymnastic detrimental to charac- 
ter, IOI. 404, 111, 122-4. 424, 
130-1. 

the smallest, that will reform 
a state, 186. 473, 202. See also 
Variety. 

Character, the secret of happiness, 
4. 329, 39, 369. 620, 415. 

—— the root of beauty, 95-6. 400, 
104-9. 

—— important in students of dia- 
lectic, 268. 539-40, 307. 

Children, plasticity of the minds of, 
65. 377, 88, 67. 378, 71. 382. 

—— community of, 153, 449, 168- 
70. 460-1, 186-7. 

—— to have experience of war, 
177-9. 466-7, 195, 244. 521, 264. 
537, 304. 





INDEX 


Children to be made the means of 
reforming the city, 269. 541, 
309-10. . 

City, economical cvastruction of, 
53-7- 369-71, 81-4. 

—— the healthy and the diseased, 
57-60. 371-4, 84-6. 

—— the moral growth of, by puri- 
fication, 94-5. 399-400, 103, 146. 

—— the democratic, condition. of 
the three classes in, 297-8. 564-5, 
337. 





be as happy as possible, 117-9. 

420-21, 124-7. 

unity in, I20-2. 422-3, 
127-32, 148-9, 170-2. 462-3, 
188-90, 280. 551-2, 321. 

—— -——- compared with the soul, 
132. 431, 139, 148-9, 138. 435; 
ot 145. 440-1, 146-8. 441-3, 








relationship in, 170. 461, 
172. ‘463. 

—— —— condition of the realisa- 
tion of, 186. 473, 201-2. 

the philosophic constitution of, 
219-20. 501, 269. 541, 309-10. 

Civilisation, Plato’s care for the 
preservation of, 196. See also 
Barbarians. 

Classes, the three in the state, 136- 
7- 434-5; 144-6. 

Classification, relativity of to pur- 
pose or standard of class, consid- 
ered, 158-60. 453, 177-81. 

Climate, the effect of on species, 
214. 497, 229. 

Community of pleasures and pains, 
171-3. 462-4, 188-92. 





—— of property, 21-8, 116. 416, 


122. 423, 129-32, 153. 440, 174, 
174. 464, 191-2. 

—— of wives and children, 153. 
449, 175, 164-5. 457, 184-5, 170. 
461-2, 173. 464, 190-1. 

Compact, the social, formal state- 
ment of, 41. 358-9, 72-3. 

Composition, literary, the three 
forms of, 84-92: 392-8, 97-102. 

Compromise, a characteristic of all 
states and characters between 


the pattern, the whole of, to 





419 


kingship and despotism, 316-7, 
326. 

Conceptions, abstract, realisation of, 
in life, 198-201. 

Concupiscent principle. See Ele-- 
ment, the appetitive, and Desire. 

Confusion of eye and of soul, 236-9. 
515-8, 265-7. 

Conjecture, the fourth mental state, 
234. 511, 260-1. 

Conscience, the inner and the outer, 
41-4. 359-62, 74-5. 

Contradiction, statement and appli- 
cation of the law of, 139. 436-7, 
149-51, 143-6. 439-41, 158-62, 
159- 454, 178-81, 279. 

Conversion, beginning of ascent to 
sight of the Form of the Good, 
240. 518, 269-70. 

Correlatives, statement of the rule 
of, 141-2. 438, 154-8. 

Courage of the state, 129-30. 429, 
135, 137. 

of the individual, 74. 386, 94, 
96, 147. 442, 163-4. 

Craft. See Art. 

Criticism, effect of, in the behaviour 
of the mind, 239. 515-6, 265-6, 
265-6. 537-8, 305. See also Dia- 
lectic. 

Cut-purse, comparison of, with 
Pa 29. 348, 58, 310. 575, 





D 


Death, the fear of, 75. 386, 94-5. 

Debating, use of the word, 178-9. 
See also Zristic. 

Deception, not practised by God, 73. 
382. See also 7heology, canons 
of. ; 

Declamation, Plato’s dislike to, 24. 
344, 33- 359, 61. 5s 

Democracy, growth, characteristics, 
and fall of, 285-9. 555-8, 326-30, 
334. 

Den, allegory of the, 235-40. 514-8, - 
268-74, 258-9. 530, 298. 
Desire, disciplined and _ undis- 

ciplined, 132-3. 431-2, 139. 

—— a psychological element in the 


420 


soul, 143-4. 439-40, 158-61, 147. 
442, 163. See also Element, the 
appetitive. ; 

Despot. See Tyrant and Man, the 
tyrannical. 

Despotism, growth and character- 
istics of, 294-304. 562-9, 335-40. 

Development, stages of philosophic, 
63. 376, 86-7, 189. 475; 204-5, 
195-9. 485, 218, 205. 490, 223, 
219. 500, 233, 262. 535, 331. 
589, 370. 

Diagram, the mathematical, 232-3. 
510, 253-4, 254. 529, 291-2. 

Dialectic, method of, 87. 394, 98, 
159. 454, 178-9, 255-6. 

—— position of, among the sciences, 
215. 498, 230, 259. 533, 299. 

—— use of hypotheses in, 233-4. 
511, 256-9, 300. 

—— attributes of, 258. 532, 297, 
259. 533, 299, 260. 533, 300-1, 
261. 534, 302-3. 

—— dangers of, 265-7. 537-9, 305-7, 
346. 

—— conditions of the study of, 
259. 533, 299, 267-8. 539-40, 
306-7. 


Dialectictan, definition of a, 261. 
534, 301. 

training and life of, 262-5. 
535-7, 304, 267-9. 539-40, 306-10. 
See also Philosopher. 

Difference, as included in identity, 
159-60. 454, 178-81. 

Disease and Sin, difference between, 
354-7. 608-11, 403-6. 

Dog, the well bred, philosophic 
disposition of, 61-3. 376, 86-7. 
See also Development, stages of 
philosophic. 

Drone, the stinging and the sting- 
less, 281. 552, 323, 337. 

— origin and state of, 282. 552, 

' 823-4, 290. 559, 332. See also 
A ppetites. 

Dyeing, simile of, 130. 429, 136. 


E 





Education in music, 65-96. 377- 
400. 





COMPANION TO PLATOS REPUBLIC 


Lducation in gymnastic, 99-107. 
403-10. 

—— aims of, 106-7, 107-10. 410-12, 
115-7, 122. 423-4, 129, 146-7. 
441-2, 162-3, 332-4. 590-2, 372-5. 

—— results of, 97. 402, 108, 98-9. 
493, 109, 124-5. 425, 163. 456, 
182-3, 263, 367. 618. 

—— for women, 157. 452, 176-7. 
See also Paradox. 

—— results of want of, 323-4, 
332-4. 590-2. 

—— in philosophy, 215-16. 497-8, 
230-1. 

—— sciences of the second, 245-57. 
522-31, 277-95. 

Element, the appetitive, character- 
istics of, 163, 283. 553, 324-6, 
337-9. 

—— the calculative, as equivalent 
to the philosophic, 143. 439, 159. 

-——— the divine, as embodied in 
law, 332. 590-1, 372-3. 

—— the philosophic or rational, 
characteristics of, 63. 375-6, 86-7, 
108. 410, 115, 138, 161. 

—— the spirited, characteristics of, 
62. 375, 86, 318. 581, 331. 590, 
3870-1, 115-6, 161. See also 
Desire, Development, stages of 
philosophic, Reason, and Spirit. 

Elements, the distinct mental, 
146-9, 152-8, 143. 439, 158-62, 
146-7. 441-2, 162-3. 

Emotion, hostility of, to reason, 
347-54. 603-8, 395-9. 

nds and means, distinction be- 
tween, 27-8, 39. 357, 69-72. 

Er, the son of Arminius, the myth 
of, 361-'70. 614-21, 410-15. 

Eristic, characteristics of, 159. 454, 
178-9, 217. 499, 231-2. 

Error, possibility of, in judgment 
admitted, 10-11. 334-5, 44-5, I'7- 
19. 339-40, 50-1. 

Evil, bodily and mental, 105-6. 
408-9, 113, 354-5. 608-9, 303-5, 
356-7. 610-11. 

Excellences, the moral, 75-84. 
386-92, 94-7, 127-37. 427-35; 
132-46, 223-4. 504, 236-7, 240. 
518-9, 270-1. See also Virtues. 


INDEX 421 


Expenditure, productive and unpro- 
ductive, 281. 552, 322-3, 290-1. 
559, 331-2. See also Appetites 
and Drone. 

ye and reason, comparison of, 
228-9. 507-8, 242-6, 230-1. 508-9, 
248-50, 256-9. 532, 292-8. 


F 


Faculty, definition of, by effects, 
165, 192. 477, 211. 

Family, the abolition of the, 20-1, 
164-9. 457-61, 184-7. 

Fiction, use of, in education, 64-84. 
376-92, 86-97. 

Form of the Good. See Good, the 
form of the. 

ofa bed, See /deas, doctrine 





of. 
—— as equivalent to idea, 80-1. 
—— the hedonistic, used by Plato, 
317-27. 580-7, 350-66. 
Forms of literary composition, 
84-92. 392-8, 97-102. 
—— doctrine of ideas as. See 
JIdeas as Forms, doctrine of. 
—— of government and of character, 
152-3. 445-9, 171-4, 272. 544, 
313-4. See also Democracy, 
Oligarchy, Timocracy, Tyranny. 
Friendship, conception of, 10-11. 
334-5; 45, 75- 386, 94. Z 
Function, determination of special, 
55- 379; 82-3, 61. 374, IIo, 412, 
118, 166, 161. 455, 181. 
adherence to special, 60-1. 
373-4, 86, 87. 394, 98-9, 118-19. 
421, 125-7, 136. 434; 144, 202. 
488, 222-3. See also Cause, the 
final, Mature, and Purpose. 


G 


Gain, the lover of. See Wealth, 
the lover of. 

Gentleness, as characteristic of the 
philosopher, 63. 375-6, 108. 410, 
115. See also Development, 
stages of philosophic. 

Geometry, plane, the second science 
of the second education, 250-2. 
526-7, 285-7. 








Geometry, solid, the third science of 
the second education, 253-4. 528, 
288-9. 

Glaucon, son of Ariston, his revival 
of Thrasymachus’ argument, 
39-50. 357-66, 69-77. 

his city of swine, 58. 372. 

God, characteristics of. See Zheo- 
Jogy, canons of, Good, the form 
of the, and Gods. 

representation of, in theology, 

- 379- 

Gods, representation of, by the poets, 
49. 365, 77, 65-6. 377-8, 89, 
359-60. 612-13, 409. 

— as heroes, 75-83. 386-92, 
94-7. 

Good, the use of the word, 40. 

preliminary description of the, 
21, 224-7. 505-7, 239-41. 

—— study of the, 261, 534, 301-2, 
268. 540, 308-9. 

—— the Form of the, nature and 
characteristics of, 71, 224-7. 
504-7, 237-42, 240-3. 518-21, 
271-4, 390-1. See also Conver- 
ston, High - mindedness, Pur- 
pose. 

















symbolic account of, 

228-31. 507-9, 242-50. See also 

Den, allegory of the. 

method of the ascent 
towards, 243-5. 521-2, 274-7. 

Goodness, comparison with the arts, 
I2. 335, 46-7. See also Hurt. 

—— stability of, 91-2. 

recognition of the principles 
of, 108. 

—— only to be taught by conver- 
sion, 269-70. See also /ustice 
and Virtue. 

Government, disinterestedness of, 
20-2, 341-2, 53, 28. 347, 56-7. 

five forms of, 152-3. 445-9, 
171-4, 271. 544, 312, 272-6. 
545-8, 316-17, 278-82. 550-3, 319- 
24, 285-9. 555-8, 327-30, 204- 
304. 562-9, 334-42. See also 
Aristocracy, Democracy, Olt- 
garchy, Timocracy, Tyranny. 

Greeks, death regarded with horror 
by the, 75. 386, 94-5. 











pene hs. 


422 


Greeks, behaviour of, in war, 181-4. 
_. 469-71, 196-7. See also C7zvilisa- 
tion. 

pees: selection and qualifica- 
tions of the, 61-3. 374-6, 86-7, 
75-80. 386-9, 94-6, 82. 390, 99- 
100. 403, 109-11, 108. 410-11, 
115-6, I10-12. 412-14, 117-21, 
II4. 415, 121-2, 226. 506, 242-3. 
520-1, 2738-4, 261-2. 534-6, 
302-3. 

education of the, 64. 376, 87, 
74. 383, 83. 391-3, 96-7. 401, 

_ 106-7, 100. 404, 110-11, 112-13. 
413-14, 120-1. 

life of the, 61. 374, 86, 87-9. 
394-6, 98-100, 100. 404, 110, 
IIg. 421, 126-7, 174. 464, 191-2. 

—— happiness of the, 117-18. 419- 
20, 124-5, 176. 466, 193-4. See 
also Auxiliaries. 

Gyges, the Lydian and his ring, 
41-2. 359, 325. 

Gymnastic, objects and results of 
Sys in, 99- og: 403-12, 109- 
LY OL Cais 








H 


Habit, doctrine of, 96-7, 400-2, 

106-7, 150. 444, 167-9, 219, 244. 
522, 277, 370. 

Happiness, relation of, to wealth, 
28-31, 4- 329, 39-40, 279. 550; 

820. 

relation of, to goodness, 3. 

320, 89, 35-8. 352-4, 63-8, 69-70, 

170-3, 185. 472, 199, 270-334. 

543-92, 311-76. 

as life, 70-2, 125-6. 

—— of the many, 118. 421, 124- ts 

'  -:1'75-6. 465-6, 193-4, 241. 519-20, 

' 271-2, 

——— of the city and of the soul, 

_ 312-14, 576-8, 347-9. 

Harmony, discussion on, 93-4. 
398-9, 102-8, 97. 401, 107. See 
also Acoustics and JZusic. 

Hedonistic Calculus. See Calculus, 
the hedonistic. 

— form. See Form, the hedo- 
nistic. 











COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


Hegel, his distinction between the 
picture-idea and the philosophical 
idea in Plato, 14-16. 

his criticism of Plato’s alleged 
idealism, 16-17. 

Flerakieitus, his doctrines, 10-12. 

Heredity, the doctrine of, 91, 166. 
458, 185-6. 

Heroes. See Gods as heroes. 

Hesiod. See Poets. 

High-mindedness, characteristic of 
the true ruler, 242-3. 520-1, 
273-4. 

Homer, on ‘simplicity of fare and 
medical treatment, 100. 404, 177, 
104. 408. 

distinguishes between separate 
principles in the soul, 145-6. 441 
See also Poets and Gods. 

Honour, the lover of, 318. 581. 
See also Zilement, the spirited, 
and Maz, the timocratic. 

Household, the Greek, 17-19. 
also Family. 

Hurt, use and meaning of the word, 
I2. 335, 46. See also Goodness, 
comparison of with arts. 

Hypotheses, mathematical and dia- 
lectical, 151, 232-3. 510-11, 251-9, 
260. 533, 300. 








See 


I 


Idea, the picture and the philo- 
sophical, 74-16. 

Idealism, want of, in Plato, 17, 21, 
198, 234. 

Ideas, the doctrine of Forms, 6, 

» 80-1, 206, 336-40. 596-8, 381-7. 

of the public and of popular 
teachers, 209-10. 492-3, 225-6. 

Identity, the recognition of, in 
difference, 137. 435, 146, 178-81, 
2. 





—— the law of. See Contradic- 
tion, the law of. 

Tenorance, as falsehood in the mind, 
72. 382, 92, III. 413, 119. 

and the non-existent, I9I-3. 
478, 210-12. 

Images, significance of, in the al- 
legory of the Den, 239. 517-8, 





INDEX 


269, 242. 520, 272, See also 
Pattern. 

Imitation, definitions of, 85-6. 393, 
97-8. 

a distinct tendency, 87-8. 394- 

5, 98-9. 

force and all-pervading charac- 

ter of, 88-9. 395, 99-100, 102, 

105, 219. 500, 233, 350-1. 605-6, 

399-400. 

connection of, with tempera- 

ment, 90-1. 396-8, 100-2, 349. 

604-5, 398-9. 

relation of, to reality, 335-9. 
595-7, 379-87. 

Imitator, remoteness of, from know- 
ledge and reality, 335-45. 595- 
602, 380-92. 

dependence of, on sense-per- 
ception, 345-7. 602-3, 392-5. 

Injustice, nature of, 24. 344, 54-5, 
33-5. 351-2; 61-2, 150. 443-4, 
168-9. 

profitableness of, 25. 345, 57- 
8, 29. 348, 58, 38. 354, 50-1. 
366-7, 77-8. 

—— as existing in the city, 53. 
369, 127. 427. 

Intelligence and sight as correla- 
tives, 228-30. 507-9, 246, 248. 
524, 281. 

—— connection of, with the. exis- 




















tent, 260. 534, 301 See also 
Knowledge. 

Interest of the individual, 20-9. 
341-5, 51-8. 


community of, 110. 412, 178, 
171-4. 462-4, 188-92. 

Trony, or mock humility of Socrates, 
14-15. 337, 49, 52. 368, 85. 392, 
155: 45!- 





J 


Justice as formal honesty, 2-6. 328- 
31, 38-41. 

popular, or Simonides’ doc- 

trine of, 6-13. 331-6, 41-8. 








68, 329-34. 588-92. : 


| Kingdom. 


423 

Justice, rewards and recognition of, 
24. 344, 54-5, 29. 348, 57-8, 
33-351, 43-4. 360-2, 75, 50-2. 
366-7, 77-8, 359. 612, 409. 

as a means, or as an end, 39- 

BI. 357-67, 69-78. 

as artificial or repression, 41. 
358-9, 72-38. 

—— in the individual mind, and in 
the city, 52-3. 368-9, 79-81, 127. 
427, 133, 137. 434-5, 145-6, 146- 
8. 441-3, 162-5, 149. 444, 168. 

—— as knowledge, 106. 409, 114, 
119, 120, 240. 519, 271. 

——as division of labour, 134-6. 
433-4; 142-6, 148-51. 443-4, 165- 
70, 269. See also Function. 

— comparison of, with injustice, 
149. 444, 330. 589, 367-8. 618-19, 
414-15. 

connection of, with happiness, 

172-8, 185. 472,- 199, . 327-9. 

587-8, 367-8. See also Goodness 

and Virtue. 











K 


Kinds, the three psychological. 
See Elements, the distinct mental, 
Soul, the three parts in the. 

King. See Philosopher. 

See Aristocracy. 

Knowledge as goodness. See /us- 

tice as knowledge. 

abstract and qualified, 142. 

438, 155-6. 

as distinct from opinion, 190-2. 

475-6, 205-11. See also Philo- 

sopher, the true. 

as the good. See Good, the 
form of,the. 

—— the lover of, as a judge of 














Thrasymachus’ doctrine of, | 
as weakness, 16-38. 338-53, 49- 


pleasure, 319-21. 581-3, 351-2. 
-——- relation of to reality, 325. 585, 
360-2. 


L 


| Labour, conception of the division 

of, 54-5. 369-70, 82-3, 60. 374, 
| 99, 149. 443, 166. See also 
| Function. 


424 


Labourers, Plato’s attitude towards, 
84. 

Law, analogy of, with medicine, 
IOI-7. 404-10, (11-15. 

—— the spiritual need of, 332. 
590-1, 372-3. 

Lawyers, as necessitated by want of 
education, I0I. 405, 111, 107. 
410. 

-— qualifications of, 106. 408-9. 

Laziness as productive of ill-health, 
102. 405, 125. 426. 

Learning, love of. See Develop- 
ment, stages of philosophic. 

Letters, simile of the, 53. 368, 80-1, 
97. 402, 107-8. 

Lie, in the mind, 71-2, 381-2, 
92-8, III. 413, 119, 263. 535, 
808. 

—— the justifiable, '72. 382, 79-80. 
389, 96, 113. 414, 167-8. 459-60, 


Life, as happiness, 37. 353, 65-7, 
70-2, 


—— value of experience of, 112. 
413-4, 120-1. 

—— the choice of, 366-9. 617-20, 
413-15. 

the dreaming. See Opinion 

and Philosopher, the false. 

the future, 5. 330, 40, 216. 
498, 281, 361-70. 614-21, 410- 
15. See also Sou/, eternity of 
the. 

—— the good, connection of, with 
morality and happiness, 3. 329, 
_ 378. 353-4, 65-8. 

how to lead, 39, 24. 344, 

35. 352, 64. 

connection of, with war, 

60. 374, 35. 

—— comparison of, with the 

evil, 348-66, 368-76. 

the intellectual, 2. 328, 39-41, 
321. 583. See also Knowledge. 

—— the theoretic, 272-3. 

— the waking. See Knowledge 
and Philosopher, the true. 

Line, simile of the, 231-2. 509-10, 
250-9. 

Literary Composition. 
position, literary. 




















See Com- 





COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


Literature, imaginative, effect of, 
on character, 64-74. 376-83, 


87-93. 

— educational use of, '75-84. 
386-92, 94-7. 

—— -—— influence: of, through 
imitative tendency, 84-92. 392-8, 
97-102. 

Lover, the true and the amateur, 
188. 474, 204-5, 198. 485, 219. 
Luxury, connection of, with 

pauperism, 281. 552, 322-3. 

Lysias, son of Cephalus, 2. 328, 

38. 





M 


Magistrates. See Guardians. 

Man, of manifold talents, gr1-2. 
398. 

as a unity, 122. 423, 129. 

—— the bald and the long-haired, 
160. 454, 180. 

—— the democratic, origin and char- 
acteristics of, 289-94. 558-61, 
330-4. 

the godlike, origin and char- 

nF of, 50. 366, 73-4. 382-3, 

93. 











— rewards of, 180. 465-9, 
195. 

—— the good, temperate behaviour 
of, 90. 396, 100. 





107. 409. See also Man the 
just. 

—— the harmonised, picture of, 
333-4. 591-2, 374-6. 

—— the just, characteristics of, 13. 
335, 30. 349, 59, 148. 443, 165. 

comparison of, with 

unjust man, 23-4. 343-4, 25- 347; 

eee 43-4. 360-1, 75, 272. 545. 

as the wise and good, 
= 350, 58-61. 

—— —— happiness of, 35-8. 352-4, 
64-8, 317. 580. 

treatment and rewards 
of, 44. 361-2, 75, 47. 364, 76, 
185. 472, 199-200, 360. 613, 409. 

—— the musical, characteristics of, 
97-8. 402, 115, 110. 412. 














INDEX 


Man, the oligarchical, origin and 
Pie of, 282-5. 553-5, 323-6, 

—— the perfect, attitude of, towards 
state affairs, 27-8. 346-7, 56-7, 
239. 517, 268-9, 242-3. 519-20, 
273, 277- 549. 

-— the self-sufficing, character of, 
44. 361, 75, 70. 381, 91-2, 77. 
387, 95, 214. 496, 228-9. 

the scientific, connection of, 

with the just, and with the wise 

and good, 32. 350, 59-61. 

the thirsty, and his desire for 

drink, 140-3. 437-9, 157-9. 

the timocratzc, origin and char- 

acter of, 276-7. 548-9, 318-9, 

318. 581, 328. 587, 367. 

the tyrannical, origin and life 

of, 306-12. 571-6, 244-7, 328. 

586-7, 367. 

with post of tyrant, 

misery of, 314-7. 578-80, 349-50. 

the unjust, characteristics of, 

13. 335, 30-1. 349, 59, 330-1. 

589-90. a 

— comparison of, with just 

man, 23-4. 343-4, 28. 347, 58, 

43-5- 360-2. 

as the ignorant and bad, 

32. 350, 58-61. 

happiness of, 35-8. 352-4, 
64-8, 317. 580. 

——_— —— treatment and rewards of, 
45- 362, 47. 364, 76, 50. 366, 
185. 472, 199-200, 272. 545, 360. 
613, 409. 

—— the vicious, ignorance of, con- 
cerning virtue and vice, 106. 409, 
114. 

Mantiiness. See Courage. 

Marriage, regulations concerning, 
166-9. 458-61, 185-7, 179. 468, 
195. 

‘ Master of himself,’ meaning of the 
expression, 131-2. 431, 137-8. 
Measure, requirements of a. See 

Accuracy. 

Merit, selection. according to, 114. 
415, 121. 

Metals, simile of the, 114. 415, 274. 
547- 



































425 


Mind, relation of, to experience, 
265-6. See also Soul. 

Miser, the origin and character of, 
283-4. 554-5, 324-6. 

——theson ofthe. See Wan, the 
democratic. 

Monster, the huge and powerful, 
209. 493. 

the composite, 329-30. 588-9. 

Morality. See Goodness, Justice, 
and Virtue. 

Music, training in, 64-97. 377-400, 
87-109, 244. 522, 277. 

—— results of training in, 97-8. 
402-3, 107-9, 108-9. 410-1, 
115-7. : 

—— object of training in, 107. 410, 
115 





Myth, the, of Ex, 361-70. 614-21, 
410-5. 


N 


Narratives, the subject of, 64-84. 
376-92, 87-97. 

—— the forms of, 84-92. 392-8, 
97-102. 

Nature, conception of, in Plato 
and Aristotle, 22, 55. 371, 82-8, 
134. 433, 147, 169-72, 180-2, 
284, 249-50, 326, 365-6, 368, 
338. 597, 384-5. See also Func- 
tion and Purpose. 

Natures, the finest, most affected by 
environment, 207-8. 491, 223-4, 
222. 503. Seealso Zemperament, 
the philosophic. 

Number, a record of ideal selection, 
282, 284. See also Unit. 

Nurture. See Education. 


O 


Occupation, dependent on fitness, 
379, 82-3, 157-9. 452-3, 
176-7, 161-2. 455-6, 181-2. See 
also Analogy and Nature. 
Oligarchy, growth and character- 
istics of, 278-82. 550-2, 319-24, 
327. 


fall of, 334. 





426 


Opinion, characteristics of, 41, III. 
412-3, 119, 130. 429-30, 136-7, 
195. 479, 212, 

—— destruction of, III. 412-3, 119, 
266. 538, 305-6. 

—— distinction of, from knowledge, 
190-1. 475-6, 208-10. 

object-matter of, I9I-5. 477-9, 
210-2, 260. 534, 301. 

Opposites, nature and use of, 139- 
40. 436-7, 149-51, 152. 

Optics. See Astronomy. 

Oracle, the Delphic, 126-7. 427, 
132, 180. 469, 195. 

Order. See Law. 





i 


Pain. See Pleasure. 

Paradoxes, the three great, 156-7. 
451-2, 175-84, 164. 457; 184-7, 
186-7. 473, 202-3. 

Parts, the three pyschological. See 
Elements, the distinct mental, 
Soul, the three parts in the. 

Passion, comparison of, with a 
tyrant, 3. 329, 39, 90. 398, 307- 
8. 573, 345-6. 

Pattern, of a perfect state, 185. 472, 
199-200, 197. 454, 218, 334. 592, 
375. 

Pauperism. See Luxury. 

Philosopher, to be king, 186-7. 473, 
202-8, 217. 499, 220. 501, 235. 
See also Paradoxes. ; 

——- distinction between the true 
and the false, 190. 476, 205-8, 
196. 479-80, 215. Seealso Know- 
ledge and Opinion. 

the false, rise and characteris- 

tics of, 212-3. 495-6, 226-8, 218. 

500, 2382, 262-3. 535. 

true, characteristics and 

qualifications of, 187-8. 474-5, 

202-4, 197-206. 484-90, 217-23, 

212. 495, 227, 232, 218-20. 500-1, 

282-5, 222-3. 503, 236, 319-21. 

581-3, 351-3. 

destruction of, 206-12. 

491-5, 223-7, 215. 497. 

education and duties of, 

221-5. 502-5, 236-9, 241-2, 519- 





— t 











COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


20, 271-8. See also Den, the 
allegory of the, Dialectician, and 
Politics. 

Philosophic Development. See Deve- 
lopment, stages of philosophic. 
Philosophic Temperament. See 
Temperament, the philosophic. 
Philosophy, characteristics of, 134. 

432, 141-2, 199. 485, 219-20, 231. 
. §09, 252-8, 257-62. 531-5, 295- 
303. 


—— study of, 202. 487, 221, 215-6. 
498, 230-1, 268. 539, 307. 

—— neglect and discredit of, 207- 
13. 491-6, 223-8, 216-8. 498-500, 
231-3. 

value of, 214-21. 497-502, 229- 





35. 

Phenician, or miner’s story, 113. 
414, 121. 

Physicians, as necessitated by want 
of education, 101. 405, 111, 107. 
410. 

—— qualifications of, 105. 408, 
113-4. 

Pilot, and sailors, simile of the, 232- 
3. 488, 221-2. 

Plato, condition of Greece during 
the life of, 7-3. 

order of his dialogues, 4-8. 

—— his indebtedness to previous 
philosophers, 4-8. 

—— his love of sheer seeing, 37. 

his protest against the use 

made of passages from the poets, 

76, 111, 113. 

his desire to preserve human 

responsibility, 97. 

his attitude towards the his- 

torical necessities of civilisation, 

ZIT, 

his imagery, 217-8, 231, 232- 
3, 241. 

Pleasure, nature and value of, 112. 
413, 120, 143. 438, 160, 324-6. 
585-6, 358-66. 

and pain, community of, 171. 

462, 174. 464-5, 189-92. 

relation of, to pain, 322-4. 583- 
5, 355-64. 

Pleasures, distinction of, 199. 485, 
219. 























INDEX 


Pleasures, the three, 317-21. 580-2, 
350-8. 

—— positive and negative, 321-4, 
583-4, 353-8, 366. 

Poetry, views of, 12, 13, 400, 402. 

‘dramatic, its relation to reality, 
340-3. 598-601, 387-8. 

—— emotional effect and danger of, 

350-1. 605-6, 399-401, 353. 607- 

8 -3. 


’ 








study of, 352-3. 606-8, 401-3. 

Poets, faults and duties of, 42, 13. 
336, 47, 46-8. 363-4, 76-7, 68-84. 
379-92, 92. 389, 101, 302. 568, 
340-1, 341. 599, 350. 605, 399. 

remoteness of, from. reality, 


340-3. 598-601, 387-8, 349. 605, 
399, 


Polemarchus, son of Cephalus, his 
life and fate, 38, 240. See also 
Justice, popular. 

Politics, as the work of the philoso- 
pher, 214. 497, 334. 592,.876. 
Possibility of realisation. See Reali- 

sation. 

ofthe Reform. See Reform. 

Poverty, influence of, on perform- 
ance of function, 119-20. 421-2, 
127, 

Principle, growth of, from habit, 
79. 389, 96, 97. 401, 107, 
219. 


nature of the first, 232-3. 510-1, 
252-8, 260. 533, 300. Sée also 
Element, 

Property, community of. 
Community. 

influence of private, 116. 417, 
122, 171. 462, 316. See also 
Wealth. 

Public, unphilosophic nature of the, 
208-9. 492-3, 224-5, 219-20. 
500-I. 

Publication, conditions of, in the 
time of Plato, 33-5. 

Punishment of the badly governed, 
27-8. 347, 56-7. 

—— theory of, 69. 380, 91, 107. 
410, 332-3. 591, 372-3. 

the cycle of, 362. 615. 

Purpose, existence of, in good life, 
3. 328, 39, 5. 330, 40, 











See 











427 


Purpose, existence of, in all crafts, 
21-2. 341-2, 51-3, 26-8. 346-7, 
56-7. 

as interest, 110. 412, 118. 

included in the good, 224-7. 

505-7, 239-40, 268, 285-6, 302, 

308. i 











as reality, 249. 

in life, second characteristic 
of the Form of the Good, 241. 
519, 271. 

—— test by importance of, 325-6. 
586, 362-5, 371, 344. 601, 389- 
oT; 





— knowledge of, as science, 
344-5. 601-2, 390-2. 
Purposes of science, 250-2. 526-7, 
285. 
Q 


Quality, consideration of, in argu- 
ment, 37. 353, 65, 155. 


R 


Realisation, conditions of possibility 
of, 184-7. 471-4, 197-203, 221. 
502, 235, 269, 540, 309 

Reality, nature and degrees of, 44. 
361-2, 75, 214-5. 497-8, 229-30, 
224. 504, 237, 231-4. 509-11, 
249-59, 254-5. 529, 325-6. 585-6, 
360-4, 337-47. 596-603, 382-95. 

Reason, in society and in the soul, 
132-3. 431-2, 138-40, 143. 439, 
152-4, 234. 511. 

—— comparison of, with the eye, 
228-9. 507-8, 258-9. 532. 

—— characteristics of, 277. 549, 
348-9. 604, 396-9. See also 
Element, the philosophic. 

Reform, principle of the, 186-7. 473, 
202-8, 218. 499, 221. 502. 


_ Relativity, principle of, 195. 479, 


213-4, 247-8. 523-4, 279-81, 266. 
538, 306. _ See also Correlatives. 

‘ Republic,’ position and structure 
of the, 4-8, 171-2. 

Residues, method of, 127. 427, 133, 
135. 433- 

Retribution, views of 5. 330, 362. 
614-5, 412-3. 


428 


khythm, nature and power of, 94-5. 
399-400, 102-5, 343. 601. 

Route, the longer, to truth respect- 
ing the soul, 138. 435, 147, 223. 
504, 236-7. 

the shorter, 138. 435, 147. 

Ruler, as ruler, infallibility of, 20. 
340-1. 

—— disinterestedness of, 21-3. 
341-3, 26-8. 346-8, 56-7, 204. 
489, 242. 520, 273-4, 





S 


Science, value of the judgment of, 
246. 522-3, 278. See also Know- 
ledge. 

and political power, juxtaposi- 

tion of, 187. 473, 202-3. See also 

Faculty and Politics. 

medical, proper aim of, 107. 
409-10, 114. 

Sciences of the second education, 
244-57. 522-31, 277-95. 

co-ordination of the, 257. 531, 
295. 

—— the mathematical, nature and 
study of, 259-60. 532-3, 299-300, 
264. 536, 304. 

Seeming. See Opinion. 

Sense, the judgment of, 246. 522-3, 
278, 346. 602, 392-5. 

Sensuality, as equivalent to avarice, 
138. 435-6, 318. 580-1. 

Service, military, rules of, 179-84. 
468-71, 195-8. 

Sexes, question of the equality of 
the, 157-8. 452-3, 175-7, 161-4. 
455-7, 181-4, 176-7. 466, 

198-4. 

Sight and intelligence as correla- 
tives, 228-30. 507-9, 246, 243. 
524, 281 

Stn and disease, difference between, 
354-7. 608-11, 404-6. 

Skill, as goodwill or goodness, 9. 
333, 483, 31. 349; 60-1, 

Slave-owner, comparison of, with 
tyrant, 315-6. 578-9. 

Society, conceptions of a healthy, 
152. 445, 172-3. 














COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


Socrates, his identification of know- 
ledge and goodness, 106. 409, 
LTQ, TIX. A133. 119. 

his supernatural sign, 213-4. 

496. 

allusion to his death, 238. 517, 
265. 

Songs, form and nature of, 92-6. 
398-400, 102-5. 

Sophist, as the representative of the 
Sage 49. 365, 77, 208-10. 492- 
3> 








Soul, nature and characteristics of, 
37- 343, 65-7, 65. 377, 88, I5I. 
444, 325. 585, 362, 357-8. 611-2, 
406-9. 


relation of, to body, 98-9. 
402-3, 108-9, 325. 585, 362. 

—— complexity of the, 131. 431, 
138, 329-30. 588-9, 368-70. 

—— comparison of, with the city, 
132. 431, 138-9, 138. 435, 148, 
145-6. 440-1, 161-2, 312-4. 576-8, 
347-9. 

—— the three parts in the, 137-47. 
435-42, 146-65, 347-9. 602-4, 
396-7. 

—— unity of the, 148, 158, 149. 
443, 167, 171. 462, 189-90, 330. 
585-9, 369, 332. 590-1, 372, 357-8. 

II-2. 

— conversion of the, 240. 518, 
270, 244. 521, 274-6. 

freedom of the, 313. 577, 
348-9, 366. 617-8, 414. 

—— eternity of the, 354-7. 608-11, 
403-6. 

—— condition of the tyrannical, 
313. 577, 348-9. 

Spirit, characteristics of, 61-2. 375, 
86, 144-7. 439-42, 158-64, 276. 
548, 317-8. See also Element, 
the spirited. 

Stages of philosophic development. 
See Development, stages of philo- 
sophic. 

State. See City. 

States, the degrees of the mental, 
234. 511, 259-60, 260. 534. 

Stimulants, and non-stimulants, 
246. 523, 276. 

Strife. See Honour. 








INDEX 


Sun, as a symbol of the Good, 228- 
9. 507-8, 244-6, 230-1. 509, 248- 
50, 236-40. 515-9, 266-7. 

Swine, the community of, 58. 372. 


3% 


Temperament, the philosophic, 
characteristics of, 108. 410, 115, 
200. 486, 220, 213. 496, 217. 499, 
233, 222-3. 503. See also Deve- 
lopment, stages of philosophic, 
Element, the rational, and Wa- 
tures, the finest. 

Temperance, nature of, 80. 389, 96, 
131-3. 430-2, 137-41, 147. 442, 
164-5. 

Theages, the bridle of, 213. 496, 
Dg 

Theology, Plato’s canons of, 68-9. 
379-80, 73. 383, 91-3. | 

Theory, connection of, with realisa- 
tion, 186. 473, 201. 

Thought, the law of, 139. 436, 149- 
50 


Thrasymachus, his theory of justice. 
See Justice, Thrasymachus’ doc- 
trine of. 

Timocracy, rise and characteristics 
of, 272-7. 545-8, 313-9. 

Trade. See Function. 

Tragedian, the remoteness of, from 
truth, 339. 597, 386. 

Truth, the nature of, 79. 389, 96, 
190. 475, 205, 199. 485, 220. 

—— as knowledge, 111. 413, 118- 
20, 198. 485, 219. 

—— symbolised by light, 230. 508, 
246-7 

Types of government. 
ment, five forms of. 

Tyrant, development and life of, 

-304. 565-9, 339-40. 

hers aba of, from truth, 328. 

586-7, 367. 


See Govern- 


U 


Understanding, the second mental 
state, 234. 511, 261. 

Unit, ideality of the, 248-50. 524-6, 
281-4. 





429 


Unity, as result of education, 133. 
431, 140, 146-7. 442, 162. 

—— of society and of individual, 
171. 462, 188-94. See also City 
and Sozd/. 

—— value of, 273-4. 545-7. 

—— a spurious, in the miser, 284. 
554, 325. See also Compromise. 

Universal, true and superficial, 189. 
475, 204-5. 

User, in place of creator, 344. 601- 
2, 389-90. 

Utility, want of, in imitative art, 
341-2. 599-600. 

— consideration of, in educational 
sciences, 249. 525, 251. 526, 252. 
527, 287-8. 

Vv 

Valetudinarianism, evils of, 102-3. 
405-6, 111-2, 125. 426, 132. 

—— in politics, 125-6. 426-7, 132. 

—— and intellectual life, 213. 496, 
228. 

—— in morals, 333. 591-2, 375. 

Variety and disease, 101. 404, 111, 
125. 426, 132. 

—— and the uneducated, 91. 397, 
101-2, 132. 431, 139. See also 
Change. 

Vice, the disease of the soul, 151. 
444, 170. 

Virtue, characteristics of, 37. 353, 
65-7, 277- 549, 279. 550-1, 320, 
285-6. 555-6, 327. 

—— the health of the soul, rsr. 
444, 171., See also Goodness and 

Justice. 

Virtues, the four cardinal, in the 
city, 127-37- 427-35, 132-46, : 

—— —— in the soul, 146. 441, 162, 
223. 504. 


Ww 


Wages, the art of, 26-7. 346, 56. 

Wants, the spiritual, 332-4. 590-2, 
bo 5 tae 

War, origin and nature of, 59-60. 
373-4, 85-6, 182. 470, 196. See 
also Barbarians and Civilisation. 

Waves. See Paradoxes. 





430 


Wealth, advantages of, 4-5. 330-1. 

—— restrictions respecting, 82. 
390, 116-7. 416-20, 122-3, 19-20. 
421-2, 126-8, 281. 552, 322. 

—— dangers of, 119. 421, 126-7 
277- 549, 318, 280. 551, 321. 

-—— incompatibility of, with virtue, 

. 279. 550, 320, 285-6. 555-6, 327. 

—— the lover of, 318. 581. See also 
Man, the oligarchic and Zlement, 
the appetitive. 

Will, the good, as the essence of 
goodness, 146. 441, 162, 149. 
443, 166-7. 

Wisdom, of the state, 128-9. 428, 
134-5, 132. 431, 138, 149. 443. 

of the individual, 147. 442, 

_ 164, 189. 475, 204. 








COMPANION TO PLATO'S REPUBLIC 


Wisdom, characteristics of, 199. 485, 
208. 492, 222, 240. 518-9, 270. 
~Women, position of, in Greek house- 
hold, 18-21. 

duties of, according to Plato 

and Rousseau, 187. 

position of, in a despotism, 

295: 563, 335-6. See also Com- 
munity and Sexes. 

Work, fitness for. See Occupation. 

World, the animal, examples from, 
61-3. 375-6, 86, 122. 424, 156. 
451, 175-6, 166. 459, 186. 

Worlds, of sense and of thought, 
227-9. 507-8, 242-4, 231-4. 509- 
II, 250-9, 248. 523, 281. 

—— divisions of, in the allegory of 
the Den, 236-7. 515-9, 264-6. 


he 








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from which it was borrowed. 








REC'D L-ypy 


FEB D8 1999 
PON APR 03 1988 


Ree'p LD-URL 
WOV 2.0 1993 





UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 


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